That Voice Which Calls to Me
by Aslilin
Summary: Complete. Clarice's new partner knows more than she expects about both Dr. Lecter and herself.
1. Chapter 1: Reunion

"Now, where did you go first?"  Will Graham stepped slowly into the darkened house.  _You were carrying her, obviously_.  An image flashed through Graham's head and he closed his eyes, leaning against the doorframe.  Several minutes passed before his stillness turned to violence as he hit the frame hard with his first.  _You ruined my life when I managed to capture you, but you save her when should have done the same_.  He opened his eyes and looked around.  "Could this be a crush, doctor?"  He remembered that the report said she had awoken upstairs._  That's what he did first, then.  He took her upstairs, drugged her, and then left to find Krendler._  Graham began to ascend the stairs slowly, trying to match that pace that he knew the doctor must have adopted to support the added weight of Agent Starling in his arms.  He tried to imagine the care that the doctor must have taken to move her about.  The wind had half-closed the door to the room where Starling had said she woke.  He pushed it open tremulously.

The blinds clicked with the wind provided by the open window. _Nothing touched. You'll get the scene as fresh as possible._ He snorted at those words now. Crawford always promised him the same thing and always failed to deliver. There were many footprints making the fibers go this way and that in the carpet. All the neat lines made by the housekeeper when she cleaned the house before Lecter agreed to rent it were gone. _Lecter sure as hell didn't make all these tracks by himself, Jack._ _Who do you suppose did?_ He thought vindictively, looking at the huge size 14 men's shoe prints that could not be either the small women's feet of Clarice Starling nor the feet of a little man like Dr. Lecter. Graham couldn't get a feeling of what had happened in this room. So much activity had taken place in it after the events he was trying to decipher. He knew that somehow, Lecter had brought Starling into this room, injured, sewed her shoulder wound, drugged her, and got her into that slinky dress all here. Agent Starling claimed to have been unconscious when all those activities took place and had been very sketchy as to why she thought Lecter had put her in that dress, but with Graham's newfound suspicions, he wasn't so sure. Graham was positive Dr. Lecter has put her in the dress in a professional state of mind only, knowing the doctor's gentlemanly nature, so he knew that rape was out of the question even before he read the reports.

_So he did all those things, then went to find Krendler,_ Graham thought as he descended the steps a little more quickly this time._ He took her car and when he came back…_ Graham stood in the doorframe again. The fact that Lecter had pushed Krendler in on the wheelchair, Graham was pretty sure of, but no trace of the wheel tracks remained in the carpet as it had been trampled as much as, if not more than, the bedroom. The reports had been sketchy as to why they thought Lecter chose Krendler. They thought it a mere whim Lecter had amused himself with because Krendler had been there during his transfer to Memphis. Perhaps a belated "Thank You" for his part in his freedom. Graham was seeing it much clearer now. _He was threatening her, wasn't he, doctor? Paul Krendler was abusing his position as her boss, threatening her job because she had beat him to the punch on that Buffalo Bill case. _Graham thought of the pictures he had seen of Clarice Starling. _Maybe he was even trying to get her to perform sexual favors for him in exchange for keeping her job. _He thought of the reports that went along with the pictures. _She said no, of course. Repeatedly, I'm sure. How did you know, doctor? Did she tell you she wanted him gone from her life? Or did you manage to figure it out yourself? Of course, you did. If I managed to figure that one out, you knew it years ago._

Graham wandered into the dining room now, and then through the swinging door into the kitchen. _You drugged him earlier, so he might be awake by now, and you just went about cooking dinner calmly as can be, never hinting what the main course might be. How long would that take? You spent most of the night and part of the day taking care of her, then you got him, dinner couldn't have taken more than an hour._ He noticed the refrigerator door. _No, that was later._ He shook his head to get his thoughts back on track. _Okay, dinner is ready. You set the table, wheel out Krendler and wait for Starling to wake up. _He shook his head again. "No, that's wrong," he said aloud. _You set the table earlier. You heard her wake up and then you wheeled out Krendler and the meal to be ready for her. _Graham imagined her coming down the stairs, she must have called from the phone he had seen out in the hallway. Then she came in. The report she had filled out had described the scene vividly, but Graham found it difficult imagining a man eating his own brain, no matter how good a cook Dr. Lecter was reputed to be. Graham had seen many bloody crime scenes, but felt nausea setting in and decided it was time to escape from this house.

Outside, Graham found Jack Crawford sitting on a stone bench much as he had left him, looking out over the Chesapeake. Crawford stood as Graham approached, but Graham sat down on the bench. The silence stretched out for a few minutes before Crawford ventured, "Anything in there, Will?"

Graham held up his chin with his hands, staring out over the rolling bay. "There was, Jack, but it's all been gone now. I thought you said it was in great condition."

"Well, yeah, Will. Great condition for the scene of the latest meal of Hannibal the Cannibal. What did you expect? It was hard enough keeping all the paparazzi out of there. Lecter's even more popular than Madonna with them."

"And you say Agent Starling is still on the case?"

"Yeah. Don't tell me that after all the strings I pulled to keep her on it, that it's a mistake, Will."

"No, Jack, but perhaps Starling would be better used as bait rather than a real investigator. She seems to be his Achilles heel."

"So I've noticed," Crawford didn't look at all pleased by Graham's statement. Graham had the feeling that Starling had replaced himself as Crawford's protégé, and while he felt betrayed, he knew that Crawford had paid for this choice. Starling's loyalties seemed to waver between Crawford and her other mentor, namely Dr. Lecter. Graham could clearly see that already. _That was Crawford's own fault. He knows Lecter has made grown men run out crying and yet he sent in an impressionable trainee. He sacrificed her career to get what he wanted and now he regrets it. She could have been great._

"I have the feeling from her profile that she would never willingly let herself be set out as bait."

"You've hit the nail on the head, Will. She won't use the only bait she knows will draw him out. She's convinced she can get him without doing him the discourtesy of tricking him."

"Have you ever thought she didn't want to dangle herself because that would be too close to her real intentions?"

"Starling? No. Lecter impresses her surely, but she's dedicated to the F.B.I one hundred percent. I think her actions here," he nodded to the house, "prove that well enough."

Graham nodded slowly. "You're right. Her actions were not those of a woman who would sacrifice her job over idle fantasies."

"You think, then, that Lecter is interested in her?"

"You suspected it as well, I'm sure."

"Yes, but I thought it might be jealousy on my own part."

"Well, as you've said, her actions here prove her loyalties to you are stronger." Silence came for a moment as both contemplated. "You asked me here for a reason, Jack. Not just to look over the house. You had something else in mind."

"You're right, Will." Graham's eyes widened as Crawford launched into his proposal.


	2. Chapter 2: Encounter

Graham stepped through the black curtain as Crawford held it open for him. It was very dark in the room and Graham looked back over at Crawford as he flicked the lights on. "No, Jack," he said. "If this is the way she sees it, I want to see it the same way." Crawford flicked the lights back down, leaving the only illumination to be the desk lamp that huddled tightly over the information Starling had studied last before heading out for lunch and a jog, and from the wall display. Just before Crawford hit the lights, Graham caught sight of the sign on the inside of the curtain that proclaimed the room to be "Hannibal's House". He smiled ruefully. "Charming," he commented as his eyes readjusted to the lighting. He made a sweeping glance of the room, immediately recognizing why the room could be billed as the House that Hannibal built. He found himself compelled to move towards the big display of photographs that had been posted on the wall of the man himself, not realizing this was just what Dr. Lecter's last victim had done.

At that moment, the curtain flew open and Special Agent Clarice Starling herself appeared. Will Graham turned around, his back facing the light coming from the display of Dr. Lecter's photographs, his face in shadows. Clarice took one look from Crawford to the strange man standing in what she considered her personal space and her eyes blazed as she reset them on Crawford. Graham could see her clearly from where she was standing, photographs of Dr. Lecter projected from the wall onto her white t-shirt. Despite the triangle of sweat coming down her shirt and her sweat-drenched hair, Clarice Starling was quite an attractive woman. Graham noted that pictures did her no justice.

"What's going on, Mr. Crawford?" She demanded, not showing any of the respect that the title indicated.

"Starling, I'd like you to meet…"

"My replacement, right? God damn it, Jack! I'm so close to finding him! He's all right here, I know it! If I just had time… he's been spooked, that damned Italian bumbler saw to that, I'll have to keep refining the list of watchables, but I _know_ he's here. This guy, what does he know?" She flung her arm out and pointed a finger at Graham without ever taking her eyes off Crawford. Graham was surprised because he had moved since she had walked in and he was sure she hadn't noticed. "I've actually seen Lecter, talked to him. You can't tell me that some guy that just walked into this will understand him the way I do. Does he have any idea the kind of person he's going to take on? Is he prepared to live with another person inside his mind day and night? Does he even know what it's like to have your mind dissected and your dreams destroyed in just five minutes by a person who knew nothing about you a moment before?"

"I have a feeling I just experienced it," Graham said sarcastically.

Clarice ignored him, but her voice quieted so that Will had to strain to hear it. "Damn it, Jack! Don't take this away from me! They've taken everything else. This is the only thing I have left that I'm sure I can do."

"Don't worry, Starling. This isn't your replacement. This is your new partner."

Clarice's face didn't soften a bit. "Mr. Crawford, with all due respect, does this guy have any idea what he's getting himself into? Or is he just a glory seeker hoping to ride on some coattails up to the top?"

"I think he's qualified enough. Clarice Starling, allow me to introduce Will Graham."

For the first time, Clarice showed some surprise. She turned her head towards Graham who had stepped up and now offered his hand. "A pleasure, I'm sure," she said, obviously distracted as she gave him a strong squeeze and shake. He noticed she barely glanced at the horrible scarring on his face even though he was sure there was enough light to see it now. Even knowing she must have studied his own files to discover things about Lecter, he had expected more of a reaction form her. Usually disgust was the first thing to come. _You have to remember she saw a man eating his own brain. You only imagined it and got nauseous._ Graham decided that Clarice Starling was much tougher than her exterior made one imagine.

While Graham was distracted with these thoughts, Starling herself was once more making Crawford the target of her onslaught. "Jack, listen to me. No insult to Mr. Graham, but catching Lecter when he was comfortable in his freedom is one thing. Trying to get him when he knows he's being hunted is something totally different! Lecter's going to be even more on his guard now. You know it was eight years before anyone even suspected him in Italy! Eight years before he started using any M.O. that Mr. Graham could identify."

"Starling, Will has caught Lecter before and even though I do know that no one is better qualified to catch him again than you, Will might shine some light onto your quest that all the reports and dossiers in the world couldn't." Clarice's visage didn't waver. Graham wondered if she hadn't taken lessons from Lecter on how to be stone-faced. Crawford put his arm around her and led her a little away from Graham. "Just give him a few days, Starling. If he's no help to you, I can assign him an office somewhere else and he can pursue Lecter in his own way. Look," he continued when she gave an exasperated sigh, "this is just to help get the Justice department off our backs. They're still not sure about your actions at Muskrat Farm. They've reinstated you, but Will's presence might just be enough to let them know how serious you are."

"Alright," Graham heard Clarice say resignedly. "If that's what it takes. Three days, no more, then I want him gone, Jack. Do you understand me? Gone."

"There we go. See, Will, I knew she'd see reason," Crawford grinned. "Now, Starling, we'll just leave you alone to adjust to the idea and maybe clear off a space for Will, if you could."

"You're asking an awful lot, Jack."

"You've never broken under the strain before," Crawford said as he escorted Graham out.


	3. Chapter 3: Sharing

The next morning, Will Graham entered Hannibal's House at exactly 9:00 am. Clarice didn't even look up from her desk. She was listening to some classical music from a dusty CD player. There was a small card table that had been cleared off since yesterday and a tan folding chair sat in front of it.

"I guess this is my desk," Graham ventured cautiously, not wanting to arouse the anger she had displayed the day before. She declined to answer, and he put his briefcase down on the card table. The table immediately leaned to one side. _I guess she wants it perfectly clear who is welcome here, _he thought, and sat down on the chair that leaned in just the opposite direction. He coughed and moved the chair closer to the table uncomfortably. After a few moments, he turned around and watched her a second before saying, "Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot, here, Miss Starling, Clarice."

"Agent Starling," she corrected sharply.

"Agent Starling," he repeated. "I was just thinking maybe we should spend a little time getting to know each other before we draw battle lines."

"And what would you like to know, Mr. Graham? I already have one more person than I really want inside my head, why should I be so eager to reveal that kind of information to you?" The scratching noises her pencil had made through her entire speech continued on into the silence after she had stopped speaking.

"Well," he said, breaking the still that had dropped over the room, "Is there anything you'd like to know about me?"

The pencil scratching stopped. "Yes," she said slowly, measuring her words carefully. "Can I see the scar?"

Graham looked at her for a moment and then moved into the light so she could see his face more clearly. She looked at him harshly. "No," she said. "The other one." Graham blinked. _Of course she'd want to see the one Lecter inflicted._ _Should have expected that._ Silently, Graham began to unbutton his shirt. Her eyes stayed on his the entire time. _She _must_ have taken lessons from Lecter. That would account for all those missing hours, too._ He almost laughed at this thought, but her eyes were so penetrating that he could not. He finished with the buttons and pulled the shirttails out of his pants. Only then did Clarice allow herself to look at the scar. It ran across his entire stomach, ending at his ribcage. It should have been fatal.

"How did you know it was him?" she asked, looking mesmerized.

"I really don't know," Graham said, holding his shirt up as she looked. "I just saw the book and… knew and he knew I knew." He paused. "How did you know it was Buffalo Bill?"

"The same, sort of," she said, looking away from the scar and pulling back. "I saw the moth fly and I knew and he knew I knew and I tried to get to a phone for back up, but he was gone and everything just … happened."

"You've gone after other serial killers, too, haven't you?"

"No, only Bill and Dr. Lecter. Mr. Crawford didn't pull all the strings I thought he would to get me into his department. I've been doing mostly drug busts and other small time stuff for most of my career. Dangerous people sure, but interesting, hardly." Starling sat back in her chair and put her feet up on her desk. Graham re-buttoned his shirt and retreated to his shaky card table.

"So you find cases like Lecter's more exciting than all those gun shoot outs you've been in? I'd give anything just to have a calm life again before Lecter, before Francis Dollarhyde, before everything."

"I bet you would," Clarice said too softly for him to hear.


	4. Chapter 4: Acceptance

On the fourth day after his arrival, Graham pulled back the curtain cautiously. There was Clarice, busy already as usual, listening to a CD of Faust. She didn't look up and he noticed that his card table remained as he had left it the day before. Apparently he had been accepted into her little world, if only for a little while longer. Will had the impression that like Lecter, Agent Starling kept someone around as long as it was amusing to her, but would quickly turn vicious the second that amusement was found lacking.

"Good morning, Agent Starling," he offered.

"Good morning, Mr. Graham," she replied.

He dropped his briefcase at his table and then came back around to peer over her shoulder. She was studying pictures of the rooms that Lecter had left behind in Florence, _again._ "What do you expect to find here that you haven't already seen?"

"A sign, Will. Anything!" she said, throwing the photos onto her desk.

"Did you inspect the apartments yourself?"

"No! We barely knew he had been there before he turned up here. I got sucked into a million things right here at home without running off to Italy."

"Did you ask Jack to send you to Italy?"

"Sure, I did," she sighed dramatically. "He never seemed to want me to go there. I used to threaten to go to Florence on vacation every time he threatened to put me on vacation!" She laughed. "It's funny now, but think, if I had only gone!"

"Yes, just think. It might have been you that turned up hanging out of a balcony with your bowels on the sidewalk."

She exhaled quickly, making a little noise that relayed that she didn't believe that. He looked at her, stunned.

"You don't think he'd have kill you on the spot?"

"Has he done it yet? You should know, Will, first and foremost he's a gentleman. He promised not to call on me in that capacity and it would be against his standards to go against that."

"What about calling on you in another capacity?"

Clarice's face went cold. "What do you mean by that, Mr. Graham?"

"I only wondered if you ever thought he might have some interest in you besides as his would be captor."

"Frankly, I have never thought about that, Mr. Graham," she smiled ruefully. "It's hard imagining that a serial killer might have romantic interests in you when you're trying to put him in a cage."

"Yes, I suppose so," Will said. "Still, I have the suspicion that you haven't revealed everything that transpired at the house on the Chesapeake."

"Are you saying that I lied on my reports?"

"I'm merely wondering if perhaps you had left out details you felt were unimportant."

"Mr. Graham," Clarice said, standing. "I have always prided myself on being frank and truthful down to the very last detail. There was nothing left out of that report."

"Then how did strands of your hair get into the refrigerator door, Clarice? And why was the handle found broken off with his fingerprints all over it? Your report doesn't say that."

"I was unconscious for most of that time, Mr. Graham. Any number of things could have happened. Maybe aliens took my body and I actually slept in the refrigerator! It could have happened for all I know! Honestly, Mr. Graham," she practically spat his name out. "You need to think carefully before you make outlandish accusations. I won't be bothered by your blatantly un-researched claims." Clarice grabbed her gym bag and stalked out of the room.

When the curtain had resettled itself, Graham whispered, "Then why are you so bothered, Clarice Starling?"


	5. Chapter 5: Entreat

When Clarice had gone, Graham set about to pacing, his face bent in concentration as he watched the ground in front of his feet intensely. Several times he paused and roughly ran his hands through his hair before muttering and continuing. Finally, he stopped, his eyes set upon the photographs Clarice had been studying. With a satisfied look, he rushed out of Hannibal's House and practically vaulted up the stairs to Behavioral Science.

"Jack," he announced, pushing through Crawford's door.

Crawford looked up at him over the rims of his glasses, a spindly finger came up to push them up his nose and he looked at Graham straight on. "Find something, Will?" From his look, Will knew that Crawford really didn't expect him to have found anything. _He's probably followed dozens of dead end leads before_.

"Not really," Will said, sitting down heavily on the chair across from Crawford. "I was just wondering why you didn't send Starling out to Florence."

"Will, you know I can't just arbitrarily send her out on every little thing…"

"But this is directly related to Lecter," Graham cut him off. "Not just some lead that could go nowhere. You know he was there."

"I couldn't and still can't afford the man power to make sure she'd be protected if he was lurking about."

"You really think he would be stupid enough to hang around Florence."

"Did we really think he'd be stupid enough to come back to the States? Stupid enough to kidnap the Agent who is trying to arrest him?"

"You're right, Jack, but there's nothing stupid about Hannibal Lecter. He wouldn't risk his freedom for nothing. He was sure he wouldn't get caught." _Or at least willing to take that chance in order to see her…_The thought came unbidden into Will's head. He shook his head. "I can guarantee he's not in Florence anymore, Jack. It makes no sense."

Crawford sighed, "Neither does anything else about him." He studied his wall; all the cases he had been working on were near completion, except this one. He didn't want to retire knowing that Hannibal Lecter had eluded him. So it was a bit of ego that made him agree. "I'll get you on a plane by the end of the week, Will."


	6. Chapter 6: Expectation

Clarice Starling looked apprehensively at the boarding sign for Flight 346 to Florence. Will practically read her thoughts. _She'll be in a house he recently lived in. Still fresh from what the landlord had said._ Apparently, no one wants to rent a house that once held a fugitive cannibal. _What happens if he wants his china back?_ Graham smiled and moved to catch up with Clarice who had shouldered her carryon and plunged down the hall toward the plane. Graham was happy when he saw that the seats in the plane were arranged in twos. Clarice took the one by the window, refusing to stow her bag in the overhead compartment and Graham took the walkway seat. Clarice fidgeted a little while the plane took off, then after they had leveled out, she took a folder from her bag and began to sort through the pictures of the house again. Graham, remembering what had happened the last time he looked at crime scene photos on a plane, watched carefully to make sure she didn't pull out any pictures of the dead Italian policeman.

Other passengers on the plane stole glances at Will's face. Truth to tell, in the time he'd spent with Clarice Starling, he'd forgotten about the scarring, mostly because she herself seemed to forget it's presence. Now a child sitting caddy corner to him gave him long glances while his mother repeatedly grabbed his wrists and told him how impolite he was being.

It wasn't long before Graham fell asleep. He woke up once during the long flight to see Clarice staring out the window as if in a trance. The picture in front of her was Lecter's mug shots. Graham closed his eyes, remembering the dangerous and smug smile Lecter had given the photographer during those pictures, even while he was in a straight jacket, and drifted back off.

He next awoke as the pilot was announcing their descent. He re-buckled his seatbelt and turned to see Clarice still in that posture of contemplation. "Starling," he said. She jumped, startled. Her eyes were blurry and swirled into focus on him only slowly as if she didn't recognize him or hadn't expected him to be there. "We're landing," Graham pointed out. "Put your belt on." She fumbled with the straps, her eyes still blurred and Graham had the feeling Clarice Starling was one of those people who would fall asleep with their eyes open.

She put her files away and sat quietly as the plane landed. Although Graham would have been content to wait until all the other passengers departed, Clarice practically pushed him out of his seat the moment the plane stopped taxiing. "Eager, are we, Agent Starling?" He teased casually.

"You have no idea," she said, smiling as she shoved him along in her first real display of friendliness.

Clarice's luggage had been misplaced, so it was in a rather foul mood that she snatched the keys to the rental Volkswagen from the attendant. Graham smiled in a way of an apology to the woman and then ran to keep up with Starling's agitated pace.

"It's okay, Starling. Crawford allowed us plenty of spending money. We'll just stop at a few shops before we go to the hotel."

Clarice snorted. "Hotel? Forget that! We're going straight to the house, pal. Do not pass go, do not collect $200."

"I think it would be a better idea to relax before you go running into any situations that involve speaking with other people. What could you have lost anyway? Some shirts and a few pairs of cheap shoes?"

Clarice's nostrils flared and she stopped dead. "For your information," she started, her breathing more controlled than her face as she swung around to face him, "Those shoes were in no way _cheap_," she snarled the last word. "And I had some personal items in there, as well."

Graham stared down at Clarice, her eyes full of the passion that was her anger. At that moment, even Lecter would have looked like a puppy next to her. _No wonder he likes you so much; you're just full of surprises. You must be no end of amusement for him._ "Look, Starling. Let's just forget about it. We'll go to the house, but let me do the talking, okay?"

Her response was to turn around and stalk to the red Volkswagen. _This is going to be one of those days, _Graham thought, as he slipped into the passenger's seat. Clarice backed out in one fluid motion and then floored the gas out of the parking lot.


	7. Chapter 7: Loyalty

The house was beautiful from the outside. Graham could see the windows that were once Lecter's rooms and he was sure the view from them was spectacular. The man who greeted them at the door was small and walked using a cane. He spoke English thankfully, for neither Graham nor Clarice were very skilled in the language as far as he knew.

"You will find the house in the same condition he left it in, I'm sure. I've been unable to rent the house since then," the man said sourly.

"No," Clarice said thoughtfully as if lost in a daydream. "I don't suppose so."

"Well," the man said, eyeing her carefully, "Let's go up, shall we?"

Graham would have like to say he wanted to go in alone, but he had a feeling that Starling would be too impatient to allow that and he knew the rooms would probably be in just the same _quality_ condition the room at the Chesapeake house were. Clarice headed in first, and Graham followed while the landlord stood aside. "I'll just leave you to it," he said, looking nervously into the rooms. "You can give me the keys back before you go back, at the end of the week, or whenever," and with that he turned and left them alone. Graham quietly shut the door.

The rooms were outlandishly opulent, Graham noted, thinking it was just Lecter's style. The photographs had not picked up all the gold that trimmed the room and it's furnishings and Graham was overwhelmed by the work that went into putting the gold inlay around the doorframe.

Clarice, ahead of him, was looking around the room with the same bit of awe. Her heard her whisper to herself and quietly approached to hear what she was saying. "So this is where you lived, doctor…" she paused to look up at the great vaulted ceilings. "And where is it that you live now?" she said, taking a step and then beginning to open drawers and look under chairs.

Graham proceeded into the next room, knowing from the floor layouts included with the pictures that this would be the drawing room. Two great stuffed tall back chairs stood in front of a large window with dark curtains. The curtains had been drawn back with large gold ropes capped with tassels. Graham approached the chair on the left and sat in it, taking in this new room. _Did you ever sit here, doctor, and contemplate what you would do to her when you encountered her again?_ As if answering his question, he saw an easel in front of him. It had been draped since they had taken the pictures of the room, and even in the pictures, the painting had been blurry, not revealing the subject of the painting. Graham approached the picture reverently, his curiosity getting the better of his cautious nature. With one hand, he grabbed the edge of the gray cloth where it left one corner of the painting showing. With a flourish and a small bit of dust, he threw the drape on the floor and was met with the eyes of Clarice Starling. He blinked, stunned. She was still in the next room. _No, it is a painting. It's so … real._ It was Clarice Starling, but not in any position that had been printed in the tabloids or anywhere Lecter might have gotten a photograph. She wore a robe reminiscent of the Romans and in one hand she held a shepherd's staff and all around her little lambs played. Her face was so serene, it reminded him of a painting of the Virgin Mary he had once seen, but it was so distinctly Agent Starling's face that he found himself calling out to her, "Agent Starling! Agent Starling!"

Starling rounded into the room and stopped stock still, her hand on her gun. Her body relaxed only slowly and her eyes locked onto the painting's eyes. She came to stand beside Graham and they stood together in front of the painting for some long minutes. "It's starting to look like a bit of a crush to me, Agent Starling."

Starling smiled. "So you've noticed it, too."

"It's getting hard to ignore. I would have thought the doctor was a little old for that sort of thing." He moved away from her then, and went into the next room, but he did not continue his search. Instead, he found a vantage point and continued to watch Starling's movements.

Clarice stood for a long time looking at the painting. Then slowly, she reached her hand up to almost touch the serene face, but stopped short. "I wish it were this way, Doctor," he heard her say to the picture and from the strength of her voice; he guessed she thought he was not listening. "They scream every night. Every night." He thought she might have started crying then, her voice had become so strained. He turned away, feeling it was wrong of him to watch her in the personal moment, but he was compelled to look again.

Clarice had regained her composure and approaching the painting, pulled it off the easel. She studied it a moment longer then turned it around and replaced it on the easel. He wondered what the symbolism of this act was until he saw her take a knife from her pocket and begin to cut the backing from the painting. She pulled the cloth up and her eyes looked satisfied for a moment before he saw her pull out a mauve envelope. As she turned it over, he was able to read the front, which in fine copperplate said only, "Clarice". Clarice looked around nervously, almost guiltily, then she pulled her shirt out from her pants laid the envelope so that the top was firmly held under her bra and the bottom was tucked into her waistline, and then re-tucked her shirt.

Graham came back into the room. "Find anything?" He asked pleasantly.

Clarice jumped. "Not a thing," she said and pulled up the backing more to show him. "You find anything?"

"No, but I thought I heard a noise in here."

She shrugged. "Everything's okay." She replaced the painting its original position and moved to look at some other paintings on the wall.

Graham slowly edged back into his own room. _Maybe I imagined seeing that. She didn't seem all that upset when I came into the room. Not guilty at all._

The rest of the search was uneventful. Graham laughed when he caught Clarice looking through Lecter's liquor cabinet. "Little early in the day for a drink, isn't it, Agent Starling?"

Clarice laughed. "I'm writing down the brands and years that he buys. See? This 1890 Merlot, he's bought it before."

"Amazing you would remember that."

"I've been studying his habits for years, Mr. Graham. No one knows him better than me. No one." She said that last with an edge.

"Well, whenever you're done nipping at the liquor, we can head to the hotel. I'm getting tired."

Clarice sighed and began putting the bottles back. She put her notepad back in her backpack and let Graham hold the door for her.


	8. Chapter 8: Visitation

The hotel they had been booked into wasn't half bad, for an F.B.I. funded trip. Graham and Starling had been booked into separate rooms that could open up into each other nonetheless. Clarice saw this as she peered into Graham's room before moving on to her own. It was an unspoken agreement that they would keep the door locked. Clarice half suspected that Graham had seen her find the letter. She could feel the expensive paper brushing up against her stomach as she walked. _No, he couldn't have, _she thought pushing the card key into the door and waiting for the green light to shine before pulling on the handle. She pushed the heavy door open with her shoulder and stumbled into the room when it suddenly gave way.

Clarice Starling found herself experiencing a rather odd feeling. Something tugged at the corner of her subconscious, but she couldn't put her finger on what. Then she noticed it. Her lost luggage lay on the bed's foot. _Well, that's not so odd,_ Clarice thought,_ they must have found it while we were searching the house. _She smiled and unzipped her suitcase. Inside, all her things… were gone! _Well, that's great. You return it only after taking everything out of it! Wonderful! _ She threw her hands up in exasperation and sat down at the bed. From this angle she could see that the closet was half-opened. She saw something blue peeking out of it and frowned. _That looks like my shirt._ The strange feeling returned. _How did…_ She moved slowly forward and pushed the door aside. Inside the closet, all the clothes she had packed were neatly hung up. She turned around and opened the drawers on the television stand. There were her unmentionables, neatly folded in a style that was not her own. From there, she headed into the bathroom, and flipping the lights on found her toothbrush and other toiletries already laid out on the sink. _Boy, either they have some room service here or… _Her thoughts were distracted by a sharp knock on the door.

Clarice's eyes went wide; she approached the door carefully, sliding along against the wall, her gun out of its holster in an instant. She peered cautiously through the peephole. _Graham,_ she thought and her body relaxed. She replaced her gun and opened the door.

Graham looked into the room uncomfortably. "Are you alright, Agent Starling? I heard banging."

"I'm fine," she smiled. "They must have found my luggage. I was unpacking." She twinged inside at lying, but it wasn't the first time. _It isn't even the first time today either!_

"Oh, all right," Graham said. "Listen, are you hungry? We could get room service or something."

"No, actually I'm a bit exhausted from the trip. I think I'm going to turn in."

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow then."

He backed up and Clarice closed the door, leaning on it and releasing the breath she had been holding. _He was here,_ she thought, pushing herself off the door and into action. She went through all the pockets on her clothing in the closet and then checked under everything and in every zipper. As she searched through the closet, she came upon a dress, she knew was not hers. It was long and red and when she searched through the bag attached to it, she found matching shoes, purse, jewelry, and hair accessories. _What's he still doing in Florence? Doesn't he know this is the dumbest place for him to be? The first place we'd look… or the last. _She finally sat on the floor by the bureau, stumped, and leaned her forehead against her hand. Then she remembered the letter. She pulled it out of her shirt with shaking hands and then slit it along all four sides with her pocketknife. _You should wait until they use the fluoroscope on it_, a voice inside told her, but she ignored it. She slowly unfolded the neat letter on mauve stationary. Her mind buzzed as she laid eye on the beautiful faultless copperplate, so much that she didn't really even read it, just consume it with her eyes. She folded it back up and stared at the ceiling, her eyes brimming. _Why am I doing this to myself? Why does he make me feel this way?_ She rubbed her fingers against the paper, which separated into two separate pieces, the bottom one of a different texture than the top. She looked down at it. The second piece of paper was white, and folded into four. She set it aside calmly and then re-opened the mauve paper.

_Clarice,_

_Admiring my work? I do think of this painting as one of my finer works. What do you think? I really should have taken the watch company's advice and copyrighted the face. Anyway, back on topic._

_I'm sure by the time you're reading this, we will have already met again, as I am heading off to the airport as soon as I finish this letter. What might transpire when I arrive there, I'm not sure I can guess. You usually manage to surprise me. You being here can only mean that whatever transpired did not cost you your job and that you are still on the case. I must say, I am delighted at that prospect. However, that you are reading this letter at all means that my plans did not go, well, as planned._

_What's the matter, Clarice? Still stuck in that little dream world where you believe the F.B.I. will solve all your problems if you're just an upstanding little citizen? Still trying to live up to Daddy's expectations? Do you really think it was a sense of justice that the higher ups felt when they decided to let you keep that job and that little closet space office you must have? Ah, poor Clarice, still believing she can make her way up in the world with honesty and without adding just a few more of those itsy bitsy add-a-beads._

_Well, I must be going, Clarice. You might call it a date with destiny. Then again, you have the hindsight to say whether that is correct or not, and I, as of yet, do not._

_Ta,_

_Hannibal Lecter_

Clarice paused and then read it three more times. No hint as to where he planned on going after Virginia. She sighed and leaned her head back against the bureau. She banged the back of it a few times before reaching over and picking up the folded white paper. Inside, she was unsurprised to find another drawing of herself. It been done in charcoal with color added delicately in soft shades. Clarice gasped, however. It depicted her sitting demurely in a red dress. Her eyes trailed off the picture to the closet where she could see the hem of the dress peeking out from the closet. _This isn't a coincidence, Starling. No way._ Sure enough, the dress that seemed to have a life of it's own in the picture was the same as the one that hung lifelessly in her closet now. The Clarice in the picture stayed thoughtfully over to the right of the picture. She was sitting on what appeared to be a stone bench. Looming in the background were tall spiral towers. A memory came unbidden into her head.

_"Did you do all the drawings on your walls, Doctor?"_

_"Do you think I called in a decorator?"_

_"The one over the sink is a European City?"_

_"It's Florence. That's the Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo, seen from the Belvedere."_

_"Did you do it from memory, all the detail?"_

_"Memory, Officer Starling, is what I have instead of a view."_

At almost the same angle, with an image of herself perching on the balcony of the Belvedere, this picture was a near replica of the one she had seen in Dr. Lecter's cell all those years ago. _What are you telling me, Doctor? Are you gloating that you have a real view now? Or are you saying that I am the only obstacle that keeps you from having an unobstructed view forever? Or… perhaps you're saying that any view without me is not complete…_

Clarice thought again of Graham's words. _"It's starting to look like a bit of a crush to me, Agent Starling."_ Had he meant Lecter had a crush on her or perhaps… _No. He couldn't have thought that because that's not true. If he knew what really happened at the house on the Chesapeake he'd know that. _Another voice came unbidden into her head. _Then why didn't you tell them what really happened?_

She spoke aloud. "Because they would have thought…"

_Exactly what they think now, Agent Starling? Really, who were you protecting when you didn't tell them what happened in that kitchen? Yourself, as you've brought yourself to believe? Or him?_

"He doesn't need to be protected."

_Oh no, Agent Starling? Not even from you?_

Clarice put the drawing to the side and put her head on her knees, rocking back and forth and wishing for all the world that she was back home sitting in the laundry room and being rocked by the rhythm of the drying machine.


	9. Chapter 9: Infatuation

Clarice awoke with a start, still sitting next to the bureau. She looked around her startled, noticing the mauve paper and the sketch were still sitting next to her, much as she had dropped them before she fell asleep. She pushed her hair out of her face and wondered what had caused her to awaken so suddenly. A knock came on the door, Starling realized it must be for the second time. "Just a minute!" she called, then paused, thinking what if was him, should she have pretended not to be here? _What would it matter! He would know anyway!_ She scrambled to get up and then running to the door was relieved to see Will Graham standing outside. _But are you really relieved, Clarice?_ The voice teased. She growled to herself before rushing back over to grab up the letter and sketch and shove them in her closet and closed it soundly.

When Clarice opened the door, she was surprised to see Graham's face lined with dark circles around his blood shot eyes. _He went out and got drunk last night? _ Clarice would not have expected that from him. She blinked and Graham decided to start the conversation.

"You look about as bad as I feel," he said.

"What?" she said, looking down and finally realizing her appearance was not her normal tidy façade. "Oh… I had a rough night," she laughed lightly.

"I can see that. You didn't even change out of your clothes. Do you want me to come back?" he asked as she began to stretch to get the kinks out of her back that sleeping upright against a bureau could cause.

"Would you mind? You could order breakfast while you wait, or go back to bed. You look like you've been up all night." From the spark in Graham's eyes, Clarice could tell that was just the case. Graham agreed and she shut the door. Heading into the bathroom, Starling saw herself in the mirror. Her blonde hair was sticking out from her usually neat ponytail in all directions and her clothes were severely wrinkled. Her eyes shared the same blood shot look as Graham's, but hers were from exhaustive dreams where the lambs never ceased to scream. Clarice got into the shower and let her thoughts be obliterated by the pounding of the water on her head.

She tried to dress casually, knowing that she would stick out like a … well, like an American in Europe. Gray dress pants and a black button down shirt that had been peeking out of her closet last night would have to do. She strapped her shoulder holster on and put a loose jacket that matched her pants over top. She hooked her sunglasses into the inside pocket of her jacket for when she got outside. Lastly, she slipped into her far-from-cheap shoes and grabbed her handbag.

Graham was standing out in the hallway when she opened the door. "Well," he said in greeting, "the house didn't give us any clues, where do we go from here?"

"We could go down to where he worked, but I have a feeling we're not going to get much out of them."

"The reports said they were scared, maybe their tongues have loosened by now."

"I doubt it, but I guess it's worth a try."

As they both suspected, all of Dr. Lecter's former co-workers had no wish to tattle on the good doctor. Will and Clarice ended up spending most of the day sightseeing. Once she was acting less in a professional capacity and more in a vacation type one, she began to see what Dr. Lecter loved so much about this city. There were art museums and theatres everywhere. The food was wonderful and she couldn't remember feeling freer and less bound in years, and what views! Graham was tolerable company. Sure he wasn't the most cultured man she'd ever met, but he had his good points. She knew he would never become a prince through some broken spell, but she was beginning to give him little glimpses into her world.

After dinner he ventured, "What do you plan to do when you get back, Clarice? Go back to that dark little dungeon and try to find Lecter until they fire you?"

"That's about all I can do, isn't it? You should know, Will, you're married to the F.B.I. And no matter what you do; you don't divorce it, it divorces you. I suspect that's the reason you never took an official position with us."

"You got that right. It's one thing to be dragged into investigations, it's another to have to do them because it's your job."

She nodded, soberly.

"So you don't plan to ever get married, Clarice? Have children?"

"What an odd question, Mr. Graham!" Will noticed the sudden change in her address to him. Not something she liked to discuss apparently.

"How is that odd?" he said. "Normal dinner conversation if I ever heard it."

She laughed, relaxing again it seemed. "I never really thought about it. I guess it's hard to imagine getting married and having children when you can't even find a boyfriend."

"Have you looked?"

"When do I have time to look?" She laughed. "In my spare time between midnight and one? Sorry, Will, there's only one man in my life and once I catch him maybe I can think about finding a boyfriend or husband."

Will Graham smiled. "Fair enough."

"Let me ask you, then. Are you looking for a wife, Will?"

"No," he said.

"Why not? You don't have the time restrictions that I do. Nor the job to take up all of your time."

"Let me ask you something, Clarice? Why do you suppose Jack Crawford never remarried?"

Clarice stopped suddenly. Everyone knew Jack Crawford would never remarry because Bella had been his, not to be cliché, true love. "I understand," she said finally.

Dessert came then and saved them from continuing the uncomfortable conversation.

Afterwards, they strolled along the narrow streets back to their hotel. At her door, Graham bid Clarice good night. He was standing a bit close for her comfort and she just smiled and slipped into her room, alone.

Inside, she took her jacket off without turning the lights on and went into the bathroom. There she splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth. She looked at herself in the mirror. _Boy do you look tired, Starling._ "I feel tired, too," she commented to the woman in the mirror. She turned off the bathroom light and went to switch on the lamp by the television. Her hand bumped into something else, but she managed to turn the light on, to discover the thing she bumped was a vase, filled with three-dozen roses. Clarice felt irritation rising. _The nerve of some people. He must be embarrassed after I just sent him to bed._ Then she noticed the tag. "Clarice," was all the copperplate said. She moved back away from it and looked quickly around the room. There was a tall back chair that faced toward the window. She couldn't see the front of it. She moved towards it and jumping onto the bed, tried to stay as far away from the chair as possible as she drew her gun. She almost knocked over the bedside lamp as she rounded on the chair. Her breath escaped heavily when she found it empty. She lowered her gun and pushed her hair out of her face, feeling foolish. She re-holstered her gun and approached the vase. Pulling the note out, she retreated back to the bed to read it.

_I'm disappointed, Clarice. I'm sure you got my invitation last night. What made you ignore it? Have you and Will come to an agreement of some sort? I can't honestly say that that I approve of that, if it's the case. Truthfully, he doesn't seem your type, excuse the phrase. Well, in any case, I'll look for you again tonight. I trust you know the place and dress code._

_                                                                                    ~ H_

"No," Clarice said aloud. "No, I don't, Doctor," her voice was becoming strained because she was trying not to yell and awaken Will Graham. She looked on the back of the card for any further clue. It was blank. She sighed. _Not like I planed on getting any sleep tonight anyway, _she thought as she grabbed her jacket and headed out. As she climbed into the elevator, the door to Will Graham's room opened and he slunk out down to the staircase and headed down.


	10. Chapter 10: Discovered

Clarice found herself wandering the streets for only a few minutes before she realized she was being followed. She slowed and the steps behind her slowed. _A professional, surely_. She was convinced that it wasn't just a random pickpocket. At the end of the block, she ducked around a corner and started running, making random turns. After a few blocks, she was not exhausted but was sure if it was either of the people she suspected were following her, then they were, too. She paused to calm her breath and then headed towards the apartments they had visited yesterday, Dr. Lecter's old rooms.

The outside of the building looked much more intimidating in the moonlight than it had during the day. She pulled out the key the landlord had given her two days ago and entered the building without incident. She stood framed in the doorway, her shadow stretching long from the light in the hallway. She reached in and found the light switch. Her shadow flew from in front of her to behind her as the lighting changed. Her eyes readjusted and she stepped cautiously into the room. Everything was as she had left it the day before. She closed the door and had none of the strange feelings she had experienced yesterday in her room when she had known he had been there. She sighed audibly. "Wrong guess, Starling." She decided to make a complete tour of the rooms to make sure nothing had changed.

She walked through the library, studying the books on the shelves. She saw the doctor had not changed his reading habits. _The Wound Man_, the very same book that had triggered Will Graham to his identity at his first capture, was within ready reach of the desk. She also saw that he had been keeping up with _Vogue_ and his medical journals, which he had declined to write stories for since his "early parole" had occurred. She also saw some fiction and poetry books including William Blake, Freud, Voltaire, and Kipling. She wondered at how much more comfortable she felt looking around without Will Graham here.

Wandering into the drawing room, she stopped to study the painting of herself under the harsh fluorescent lights. Once again she reached out to touch the face of the painting, but again retracted her hand and touched her own face. Her steps were light as she passed through the door into the next room. It was the bedroom. She entered slowly as if for a moment feeling she was a stranger here, then the feeling passed and Clarice moved towards the huge four-poster bed. She smiled, thinking it was the kind of bed you see in movies about Kings and Queens. She ran he hand along the bedspread before seating herself on it. Clarice sat up by the pillow and found herself looking like a wide-eyed farm girl seeing her first city. She looked at the nightstand next to the bed and pulled out the drawer. A puff of cologne came out and she found herself dazed with a memory.

_"Would you ever say 'stop, if you loved me, you'd stop'?"_

_"Not in a thousand years."_

_"That's my girl."_

She blinked the memory of the last time she had smelled that cologne away. She flung herself back on the bed, her arms stretched out behind her, her hair spreading out like a fan. She closed her eyes and smelled the slight fragrance of the cologne still imbedded deep in the fabric below the smell of detergent and fabric softener. She pushed herself farther onto the bed with her arms and lay sprawled in the middle of the bed, immersed in her sense of smell and touch.

_What is it that you're thinking about, Clarice?_

Clarice's smile didn't fade as she inhaled deeply.

_Do you like the idea of being warm and smelling his scent?_

Clarice's smile twitched towards a frown.__

_Does it make you happy because you remember what happened directly after that little conversation? Did you like what happened, Clarice? Do you want to feel his lips on you again…_

Clarice shook her head. "No," she said unsteadily. Then she tried again with more confidence. "No."

_You want to smell him near you…_

"No!" she was shouting by this time.

_To hear that voice…_

"Clarice, what's wrong? What's going on?"

Clarice's eyes flew open and she sat up as though she had been struck. "Will!" she gasped. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question. In fact, I think I already did."

"Something occurred to me and I had to check it out," she managed.

He looked at her skeptically. _And what did you have to check out that involved being sprawled out all over Lecter's bed like some lovesick puppy?_ The voice in her head taunted. _That's what he's thinking, you know._ _You had better think up an answer to his next question and quick._

"What were you looking for?"

"I thought maybe there were some more sketches or paintings hidden in a drawer or something. You know, something that the Italian police wouldn't have recognized as Dr. Lecter's work."

He didn't look convinced, but it was a perfectly logical explanation and she knew he couldn't question it without accusing her of lying. "Did you find anything?"

"No, nothing."

Graham sighed and checking the bedside clock, "C'mon, it's almost 9:00, let's get back to the hotel and get some sleep, okay?"


	11. Chapter 11: Tet A Tet

Clarice found herself sitting dejectedly on the bed back in her hotel room, flipping through the channels discontentedly. Her expression remained the same through every channel. "Boring, boring, Martha Stewart - ugh! Boring, boring…"

She threw the remote down on the bed and turned her head away from the annoying noise. She found herself looking at the red dress in her closet. The words from Lecter's letter ran through her head: "_I trust you know the place and dress code."_ She slid off the bed toward the dress and reached her hand slowly out to stroke the silken material. _Well, I know the dress code…_and then she remembered the drawing of her in the dress. She pulled the chair over from the desk and climbed on top of it to retrieve the sketch from the far corner where she had stowed it in her rush this morning. She stood on the chair contemplating it. She turned it over. There was nothing on the back. _This is the place, definitely, but what time will he wait 'til? Am I too late? _ She could see the moon high in the sky on the picture and looked outside her window. Her inner voice said, _The same phase and everything. I'd say you've got two hours. _She checked her watch and snorted. _Midnight, how appropriate._

She threw the picture on the bed and pulled the hanger with the dress on it out of the closet. _You're crazy¸_ the voice in her head lamented, as she hung the dress from the doorframe and then hopped in the shower.

Clarice Starling didn't think she'd ever taken a longer shower in her life. Every moment she took seemed to be hours to her. She stepped out of the shower, shivering and had to walk across the bathroom to find a towel, leaving a trail of water behind her at every step. She wrapped a towel around herself and then used the hotel provided hair dryer on her blonde locks. When it was mostly dry, she went out to study the drawing. _Nothing too hard, _she thought, and then managed to get her hair to perform the same way, adding the jewel encrusted barrettes. She then somehow managed to put some make up on her face without turning herself into Bozo the Clown. Her hose and shoes came next and finally she pulled the scarlet dress on.

It fit perfectly. It was tight around her bodice and hips then flared below. Lace ran around the top of the dress, which was very low and then fell off at the sides to wrap around her the middle of her lower arm. The red gloves traveled nearly to her shoulders before stopping. Once she put the gloves on, she regretted it and took them off to put in the earrings and latch the necklace. Replacing them, she managed to put the bracelet on, thinking that out of everything, that took the longest time to do. She considered putting her revolver into the purse. It would fit. _But do you really want to show him hostility? He seems peaceable at least. He would consider the weapon rude._ She put her cell phone, some money, and her key card in the purse instead. _Now for the hard part, _she thought.

Clarice peered out into the hallway through the peephole, and then without caution opened the door, a second later, she shut it none too quietly, while staying herself inside the room. She listened carefully. Nothing stirred in Graham's room. He must have thought her escapades were done for the night. She even thought she heard him snore lightly. She opened the door again and closed it as silently as possible this time. She stood in the hall, leaning against her door, thinking how her breathing was louder than the door could ever been. She expected Graham to swing open his door any second and confront her about where she was planning on going. She quietly moved down the hall and struggled down the stairs in her heels to the floor below, not wanting the elevator to bing on her floor. Now she hit the button and waited patiently for the elevator to come for her, half expecting Graham to be on it. To her relief, there was no one on the elevator and she punched the button for the lobby. She tapped her foot as she went down, impatiently. The doors swung open and again, Clarice breathed her relief not to see Graham.

Outside, she hailed a taxi, and climbed in, the driver barely giving a look to her appearance. "Could you take me to the Belvedere, please?"

"I'm sorry, signora, it is closed this time of night."

"Oh," Clarice said. "I know. Could you drop me off there anyway? It's very important. I'll pay you extra." Clarice was desperate at this point. She had to get there and she knew she wouldn't make it more than a few blocks in those heels.

The taxi driver studied her closely, this time taking in her dress and jewelry. "As you wish, signora," he said, "but you're going to be disappointed."

Clarice smiled to herself. "Somehow… I doubt that," she whispered, as the cab rolled down the street.


	12. Chapter 12: Enigma

Will Graham searched through his pockets for change.  _Should have thought of this upstairs, Will_.  "Ah!" a breath of relief came as Will seized upon some coins in his jacket pocket.  Inserting the coins into the pay phone, Will began dialing the number scrawled on a dirty, crumpled piece of pink paper.  The phone rang, once, twice, Will began gritting his teeth impatiently and looking around the lobby to make sure Clarice had not followed him.  He wanted to ask some questions out of her earshot.

"Crawford," announced the voice on the other end.

"Yeah, Jack, it's me."

"Oh, Will.  How's everything going?"

"Alright, I just wondered if you ease my mind a little."

"I can try," Jack said, suspiciously.

"You listened to the taped conversations between Lecter and Starling, right?"

"Yeah, I did.  You read the transcripts."

"I know, but I thought maybe you caught something I missed," Graham paused, leaving the line dead for a moment.

"Will?"

"Oh, yeah," Will blinked and turned to lean his arm on the phone.  "In any of the conversations, was there anything said about sheep?  Or lambs?"

Crawford thought hard.  "No, nothing about that.  Their conversations were very professional, for the most part.  I couldn't imagine farm animals coming up."

Will nodded his head, not realizing the irony of the motion.  "Let me ask you a hypothetical, Jack."

"Shoot."

"Why would you close a woman's hair into a refrigerator and then rip off the handle?"

 A pause, Crawford knew why he was asking.  "You don't want her to be able to move.  What are you getting at, Will?"

"Exactly.  He didn't want her to move.  But other than the wound that he sews up on her, she didn't have any other mark on her.  Probably the only person to ever arouse his anger and not get hurt."

"Including yourself."

"Yeah," Will unconsciously placed a hand on the wound hidden by his shirt.  "So what purpose would it serve to make her immobile if he wasn't going to attack her?"

            The other end was silent.  Will finally ventured after a few moments, "You're thinking the same thing I'm thinking, Jack."

            "If you were already thinking that, then why did you have to call me?  It must be near midnight there."

"I just wanted to make sure I wasn't the only one thinking crazy."

"Nothing seems crazy to me anymore, Will."

Silence reigned over the dimly lit lobby where Will stood to make his call.

"Anything else, Will?"  Graham had the feeling that Crawford was only putting on this bravado to hide the anger and betrayal he felt from the thought that someone else suspected what he had all along.

"Just one thing.  Did you ever know Starling to have a shoe fetish?"

Crawford actually laughed.  "No, I never really paid attention.  She wears nice shoes, sure.  I never thought her obsessive."

"Have you ever known her to wear cheap shoes?"  Will pressed.

"Not for as long as I've known her," Crawford became serious again.  Will frowned.  "No, wait.  When she first began helping me with the Buffalo Bill case, but she was only a student, then.  Probably couldn't afford good shoes.  What makes you ask?"

"Just something," Will said vaguely, feeling now would not be the time to explain about the outburst in the airport parking lot, since he could have sworn he just saw Clarice Starling leaving the hotel in a scarlet red ball gown.

Will just let the phone fall from his hand.  "What the…"  

He sprinted towards the turnstile doors, leaving the swinging phone set to call out, "Will? Will?  God damn it!  Will!!"


	13. Chapter 13: Fascination

Clarice looked up wonderingly at the Belvedere as the taxi driver eased to a stop at it's steps.  She swallowed, thinking maybe she should have woken Will up.  _After all, it wasn't on the best terms that we last parted company._  

_You're not going to go back for Will.  _That little voice in the back of her mind was taunting again.  _It would spoil the fun._

_And what fun would it be to get eaten by a mad man? _She quickly fired back.

_That all depends on your definition of eating, now doesn't it?_

Clarice blushed at the audacity of her own internal monologue.

The taxi drive cleared his throat.  She had been staring at the building for many long minutes now.

"Oh," Clarice shook her head, dazed.  "Sorry," she said searching through her wallet.  She sighed with relief when her hand seized upon a folded up bill.  "Here," she said, "Keep the change.  Gratzi."  Then she stepped out onto the pavement, eyes searching the tall building for any sign.  The façade of the museum loomed before her, revealing nothing.  No lights shined from anywhere within.

The wind picked up, tugging at her long dress, and pulling pieces of hair from her delicate hair styling.  She wondered at the impossibility of her getting into what was probably a high security lock down museum.  She thought she heard a noise, most curiously like a door slamming.  She stood still, until she heard it again.  Moving slowly, trying to carry the lovely dress to avoid it's ruin, she tapped along the street in her high heels, until she managed to round the corner of the building and peer into the darkness of the alley next to it.  Down the long shadowy corridor, she saw a door open away from her, then crash back into the frame it was supposed to fit into.  Something, however, was blocking the doorway.

The door banged again in the wind, but Clarice didn't flinch.  It was too late now to go back on prior decisions.  Into the darkness she first walked, then ran.  Coming up to the door, she realized it was a service door, for workers to enter through, and it was being propped open by a piece of wood lodged into the automatic locking mechanism.  Clarice wrenched the wood out and threw it aside, listening to it clatter to a rest on the pavement.  Then she boldly strode into the lightless world on the other side of the door.


	14. Chapter 14: Frantic

"Clarice!  Clarice!"  Will Graham stood stupefied in the middle of the street as he watched the taxicab carrying Clarice Starling disappear around the corner.  He looked around frantically.  No cabs in sight.  _Wait!  There's one_.  Will stepped into the path of the cab, stopping the driver, who yelled something obscene in Italian.  Will rounded the car and had barely gotten his hand on the handle of the door, when the driver noticed his scarred face, and floored the gas.

"God damn!"  Will screamed, much to the vexation of the people passing by.  He charged back to the door and confronted the doorman.  "The woman in the red dress, did you hear where she was going?"

"I… I do not know, signor.  She-she just got in.  She said nothing."

Graham sighed exasperated.  "Did you see what cab company?"

"Si, signor.  Palazzio Cabs.  The signora at the desk can give you the number, if you like," the young Italian man was becoming more unsure of what Will wanted by the minute.

Will charged into the hotel lobby, ignoring the glares from the relaxing tourists.  He approached the woman at the desk who visibly cringed as he drew near.

"Mr. Graham?" she questioned.

Will stopped short with his mouth wide open, ready to start yelling.  "Yes," he said.  "That's me."

"There's a phone call for you."

"Let me take it here."

The receptionist pulled a phone from behind the counter and placed it before Will, who picked up the receiver anxiously.  "Clarice?"

"Will, what the hell is going on over there?!"  Jack Crawford's angry voice blasted into Will's ear and he pulled the phone away quickly.

"Sorry about leaving you hanging Jack, but I could have sworn I just saw Clarice leave the hotel in an evening gown!"

"What?  Wh-? Why aren't you following her?!"

"No time to explain," Will said, catching the receptionist's eye.  He put his hand over the mouthpiece.  "Get the Palazzio Cab Company on the phone.  Find out which drivers made pickups at the hotel in the last ten minutes.  Find out where their passengers were dropped off."

"He's there, isn't he?" Crawford's voice sounded distant, dazed.

"I think that's a pretty safe assumption," Will sounded perturbed at Crawford's failure to show concern for the danger Clarice was fast putting herself into if their guess was right.

The receptionist was fast at work calling the cab company.  Covering the mouthpiece again, Graham said, "Here, give me the room key for 467, and call me in that room when you find out anything."

"Si, signor," she said handing him the spare card.

"Jack, look I'll call you back from the cell phone when I get back upstairs.  Maybe she left something that will tell us where she went."

"Alright."

They hung up at the same moment.  Will spun from the counter and went for the elevator.  He jabbed the button hard and it lit up, but he watched as the numbers above the door climbed higher and higher with no sign of coming down.  He hit the wall with his fist, before turning and heading for the door marked 'stairs'.

Four flights and way out of breath later, Will threw open the door to the fourth floor hallway where the rooms were.  He fumbled to put the key card into the door.  The light flashed first red, then green, and he twisted the handle open frantically.  

Flipping on the lights, Will could see fog on the bathroom mirror still.  On the floor were the clothes Clarice had been in when he found her at Lecter's old rooms.  Will's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his cellular phone ringing incessantly in the next room.  He flew into the next room to pick it up.

"Graham," he reported.

"It's Jack.  Did you find anything?"

"I was just going into her room when you called," Will said, going back around to Clarice's room.  There he began switching on all the lights in the room.  As he passed the bureau, he felt and heard something crunch beneath his feet.  He leaned to switch on the light on the dresser, brushing past what felt to be flowers, and then looked down.  "Oh my God."

"What?  Will, what?"

Will's mouth hung open as he stared at the mauve colored paper spread on the floor.  "Jesus, Jack, she's got letters from him."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."  Will stared at the distinctive copperplate. There was no mistake; Will had received such letters from Lecter himself.  "I thought I had seen her pull one from a painting in his rooms, but I couldn't be sure.  I thought I was seeing things."

"What does it say?"

            Will's eyes skimmed the finely crafted script.  "He wrote it before Muskrat Farm.  He says he has something planned for her.  Something about pleasing her father."

            "Her father died when she was young."

            "Yeah, apparently Lecter latched on to that and is berating her about wasting her life trying to please him."

            "You said there were letters, is there another one?  One with something about where to meet him?"

            Will reached for the other letter, barely able to take his eyes off the first.  "Something about not accepting an invitation, he asks if she and I had come to an 'agreement.'"  Crawford gripped the arms of his chair impatiently.  "Wait," Will said at last.  "Here's something: 'I trust you know the place and dress code.'"

            "Alright, so it was a predetermined place," Crawford searched his memories for anything from the dungeon conversations.  "No," he said finally.  "They never talked about Florence, in any of the tapes."

            "I know, I know, but somehow she had to know where to go."  Will then saw the drawing.  "Wait a tick."  His eyes trailed over it, once again a perfect image of Clarice Starling, sitting on the ledge of some ancient building gazing over at spiraling towers.  "You visited Lecter in Baltimore, right Jack?  Do you remember the drawings on his wall?"

            Crawford shook his head.  "A little, they were lost after the transfer to Memphis."

            "The one of the towers, the spires.  Do you remember it?"

            "Yes, vaguely.  It may have been in Florence."  Crawford paged through his own reports about Lecter.  He, by mere chance, flipped to the first report that Clarice had filed on her visit with Dr. Lecter.  He remembered his words to Clarice all those years ago.  _If he's drawing, what is he drawing_.  Crawford thanked God for his foresight.  "Here, Will, he had a picture of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo in his cell in Baltimore."

            Will looked at the picture.  _Could be either one of those, but she's sitting somewhere looking at them._  "Any chance it says what vantage point it was drawn from?"

            "She wrote, 'as seen from the Belvedere.'"  

Just then the phone began ringing in the room.  "I'll have to call you back, Jack."  Will hung up without waiting for a reply.

He answered the ringing phone briskly.  "Hello?"

"Signor Graham? This is the front desk.  You wanted to know about the cabs?"

"Yeah," Will said, pulling out a notepad.

"There were four pickups in the last half hour.  Two went downtown to shopping, a third to an exclusive nightclub, and one went to the Belvedere, but it is closed, Signor."

Dread grew heavy in Graham.  "Would you call me a cab, please?"

"Si, signor.  It should be here when you come down."

"Thanks," Will numbly hung up the phone.  He had to get downstairs.  He only had one chance to get this right.


	15. Chapter 15: Trapped

Clarice Starling, for all her FBI training and confidence, was feeling uneasy.  She was reminded of another conversation.

_Do you spook easily, Starling?_

_Not yet, sir._

She smiled.  _Still waiting to be spooked, Jack_.  The dark corners of the service corridor left a million places for Lecter to be lurking.  Clarice felt like one of those dumb people in horror movies that you always scream at not to go into the basement, but who never seem to follow good advice and just get out of Dodge.  _Well, I guess that decides which way I'm going_, Clarice thought, heading up the service staircase, as slowly as possible, trying to muffle the sounds of her high heels clicking on the metal stairs.  _Curse him and his taste in shoes_, she grimaced, finally deciding to unstrap the annoying shoes, and leave them on the next landing.  She began fiddling with the clasp, struggling with it.  _This is how you know that men design women's shoes.  A woman would never put the clasp on the outside…_

"Clarice…"

Clarice stopped dead.  _Did I hear…?  No… couldn't be_.  She began to climb the stairs again, leaving her noisy shoes behind her.

_I saw that little spark of excitement.  You wanted it to be him._

Clarice glared at nothing as she trundled up the stairs.

Oh, c'mon… say it.  You wouldn't go up even one flight of stairs in high heels and a ball gown for anyone else.  Not for Jack.  Not even for your new friend, Will.

Clarice gave an unladylike snort.  "You're damn right about that," she said to no one in particular.  She felt a surge of anger, and instead of wheeling it towards herself like she knew was right, she aimed it at the three people forcing her into this situation: Jack Crawford, Will Graham, and, yes, even Hannibal Lecter Ph.D.  Jack Crawford for sacrificing Will Graham to Lecter, and then pushing Will to go after him again.  Jack Crawford for sending her, impressionable and vulnerable, into the asylum to "interview" Lecter.  Jack Crawford for giving her that fake offer of a transfer from the senator and ultimately allowing Lecter a real transfer that let him escape.  And then Will Graham, who willingly let Crawford pull him into it.  Who had the audacity to think he could actually help her.  Who ventured to think that she, a woman of discriminating taste and class, would want to invite him into her hotel room.  And finally, Hannibal Lecter, who won't … _Get the hell out of my head!_

"Arg!"  Clarice growled.  She could have sworn the second she began to think about why she hated Hannibal Lecter, that she heard his voice say her name.  _Clarice…_

_Wishful thinking?_

Clarice glowered.  _I should have made that a 4-person list… but who thinks of the evil little voice in their head as a person?_  Clarice decided she hated the voice more than any of the other three.  Clarice's inner monologue was disturbed by a voice she was certain was real this time.

"Clarice?"

_Oh no…_ Clarice felt herself sink into a deep, thick puddle of dread.  She felt as though she could just sit down on the stairs and die right there.  Seven flights of steps below her, she could see the little line of light cast on the floor from the door that Will Graham had just entered through.


	16. Chapter 16: Anticipation

Will's trip across the city had felt like an eternity.  He wondered what he would find when he arrived at the Belvedere; Clarice, perfectly fine and unharmed, wandering through the empty museum, dazed and sleepwalking, or would he find her talking with Lecter, walking through the deserted halls of the Belvedere, like some depraved beauty and the beast in her red gown, or maybe he'd find her lying on the floor between two ageless works of art, with her blood pooling around her body in the same shade as her scarlet dress, or perhaps worst of all, he wouldn't find her there at all.

_And then what will you do, Will?  Wait for her to come back and pretend to ignore that she was out all night and try to follow her tomorrow night?  Sounds like a bad television show to me._  "Me, too," he said, meaning the comment for only himself.

The driver said, "Pardon, Signor?"

"Nothing," Will covered.  "How much longer?"

"Just around the corner, Signor."

Will gripped the door handle as he waited anxiously for the driver to pull up to the sidewalk in front of the Belvedere.  As soon as the car stopped, Will shoved his hand forward to hand the driver money and at the same time, pulled on the handle to get out.

The driver glared at Graham's rudeness, but took the money, and sped off as soon as the door had closed.  Graham looked up wonderingly at the impressive building, just the same as Clarice had done twenty minutes earlier, but no slamming door greeted his arrival.  No easy entrance would there be for Will Graham.

Will jogged around the building at a brisk pace.  Then he pulled out his cell phone.  Dialing quickly, he soon got an answer.  "Yes.  This is Will Graham with the American FBI.  I need to get into the Belvedere… yes, I know what time it is… yes, I know that my status with the FBI will not allow me to have a private midnight tour… yes… look, call Jack Crawford at … Hello?… Hello Captain Vella… oh, Crawford's already spoken with you… five minutes? Okay… come in an unmarked car, just you.  I don't want this to be a circus."

Will snapped the phone off with a click.  Almost instantly, it began ringing.  "Graham," he announced.

"Yeah, Will, it's Jack.  Listen, I've had a word with the Florence police and someone…"

"I know, Jack.  I just called them.  Vella said he'd be here in five minutes.  Did you tell him who we suspect is in the museum?"

"No.  No use scaring the man and alerting the press to start a panic."

"Good thinking."

There was a long pause.  "What are you planning, Will?  You won't be able to take him by yourself."  
            "I'm hoping to speak to Starling's good sense, if she still has any."

"Don't jump to conclusions, Will.  I'm sure Clarice is still on our side."

"That's one of us."

"Look, Will.  She might not even be there.  He might not even be there.  It could have been some woman on her way to have an affair with someone's husband, for all we know."

"No, Jack.  There are too many coincidences.  She's here," he paused before delivering what he was sure would be a bomb for Crawford, "and he's here with her."

There was along uncomfortable silence which was only cut short by the arrival of Captain Vella.

"Signor Graham?" he said.

"Yes," Graham answered.  "Do you know anything about the museum?"

"Only that all the pieces are under tight security.  Who would be crazy enough to try to steal anything?"

"I don't think stealing is the purpose behind this.  The floors are under surveillance, then?"

"Yes, totally.  Cameras, laser beams, watchmen, the works."

"Is there any area that's not under surveillance?"

"Um… well, I'm sure there are no cameras or such in the service areas.  They take the artwork back there to refurbish it."

"How do I get into the service area?"

"There's a door to your left as soon as you enter marked 'restricted' in English.  I'll show you," he said as he fitted the key in the lock.

"No," Will said.  "I'll go in alone."

Vella looked reluctant.  "Okay, but I have to call the security guards to shut off the system."

"Yeah, okay, but then tell them to get out of there.  And avoid the service areas!"

Vella then became distracted in dialing numbers and Will took deep breaths.  _Not much time left.  Twenty minutes head start, now more.  All kinds of things could have happened to her in that time._

_All kinds…_ said that devilish voice in the back of his head.

Will practically cringed at the thought.  He tapped Vella's shoulder.

"How could someone have entered the service area?"

Vella put his hand over the mouthpiece.  "There are four service doors for the museum workers.  They must have a pass code and thumbprint identification."

"Ask if anyone reported their card missing."

Vella turned back to the phone and started to ask the question when Will tapped again.  "Ask if any of the workers didn't show up to work today."

Vella again turned back to his call, only to have Will tap again.  "Get names and addresses."

Vella started to tell the security guard when Graham went to tap yet again.  Vella grabbed his hand in the air and held it as he finished his conversation.  "Okay… yeah… alright…. They're coming down the main stairs.  The security systems have all been turned off."

"Okay.  I'm ready.  Let's just get them out first."

"Let me give you one piece of advice, Signor Graham.  Whoever it is you're trying to capture, it's obvious you know them, and they probably know you.  There are many open spaces in the museum.  Vantage points they could see you from.  I would stay near the walls, and cross those spaces as quickly as possible.  Don't give them any easy shots."

"Thank you, Captain."  Graham locked eyes with Vella.  Vella broke first, looking into the open door of the museum.

"Here, they come," he announced, as four men sprinted through the door.  "Good luck, Signor Graham."

Will only nodded, and as soon as the last man cleared the door, he ran full speed through it and then headed straight to the left, for the door Vella had described.  He fell into it hard, and then wiggled the handle open, and closed it behind him quickly.  In the darkened stairwell, he stared around him, wondering whether to go up or down.  _Well, I guess it's time for Plan A_… "Clarice?"


	17. Chapter 17: Entangled

Clarice stayed utterly still.  _What am I going to do now?_  She looked down bleakly at Will who was scanning the stairwell closely.  She closed her eyes and waited as his eyes approached her in her crouching position, and then slid over her.  When he found nothing, he began to mount the steps.  Clarice held her breath as he approached the first landing.  _If he keeps coming, you'll have to make a run for it.  Try to loose him in a janitorial closet or something.  You can't let him find you like this._    She watched with growing dread, as Will stood on the first landing.  He approached the door and read it's label.  He put his hand on the handle.  _Please open, please… please open_, Clarice prayed silently, holding her breath.  The lock clicked open, and then Will passed through the door.  It clicked shut.  Clarice's breath came out in a long, loud whoosh.

Instantly, she was on her feet again, running up the stairs as fast as possible.  _Gotta put some time between us.  He might not check every door._  Her feet padded soundlessly on the steps as she covered one, two, and then three flights of stairs.  Halfway up the fourth, she heard the door opening below.  Like a flash, she was crouching between the steps huddling away from the light from the floor below.

Will gazed upward again.  He saw the many shadows on the walls, but no movement, no variation in the wall pattern.  "Clarice?" he ventured again.  "Clarice?"

Clarice thought about how stupid this was.  He would eventually find her, all dolled up and in an evening gown.  She wasn't even sure Dr. Lecter was here.  Might as well save them both the time.  There was no way she could escape from the building without being seen.  If Will thought Lecter was here, which he most certainly did, he would not be stupid enough to come alone.  Him of all people, should know not to come alone.  _You, of all people, should have known not to come alone_.  

Clarice sighed to herself.  _Time to face the music._  "Clarice?"  She opened her mouth to answer him.  No point hiding anymore.  "Clarice?" she heard again below her, but as she went to speak, her voice caught in her throat.  

Above her, she distinctly heard what appeared to be a beckoning echo of Will Graham's voice.  "Clarice…"  Her eyes widened to enormous proportions, but she dared not risk the movement to look up.  Below, Will finally conceded once again that she was not in the stairwell, and had entered a door on the second floor landing.

The second, no the instant, she heard that telltale click, Clarice's head was bent back to look up.  _Only two more flights to go.  Not much room left to hide._  She gritted her teeth and started up again, briskly.  _That is if you're not just imagining what you'd like to hear._  Clarice totally ignored the voice this time.  Nothing was going to stop her now.

Up she went again.  _Good thing you didn't let your jogging slip off_.    She was almost up to the last landing, when she heard the door from the second floor open again.  She immediately began to shrink down to a crouch, but lost her balance as she went.  She tried standing again and waved her arms wildly to catch her balance.  _Oh no, _she thought.  _Not only is he going to catch me in this get up, but I'm going to go crashing down ten flights of stairs before he does it_.  _Well, think of it this way, you'll get a good view of the surprised look on his face when you land…_

Fortunately for Clarice, she'd never have a chance to see that look.  Just as she was about to go tumbling down the metal stairs, an arm wrapped itself around her waist, pulling her backwards.  A second arm came up under her own to cover her mouth and keep her from letting out the surprised yelp she had almost allowed to escape.  She allowed her body to be pulled onto the landing only so far as to regain her balance and then drew a breath with which to scream.  The scent that she inhaled was enough to make her exhale that breath slowly through her nostrils.

"Well, hello Clarice," his voice was right next to her ear, so close that she could feel his lips moving to form the words.  She gave no reaction.  She did not struggle, she did not make a noise, she barely even dared to blink.  There had been no noise except for his voice in the stairwell, and that she doubted Will had heard.  There was a long minute, where Clarice stared down at Will all those floors below, but did not move her head an inch.  Lecter had not moved either of his hands and she stood with her back pressed against his chest, feeling his steady breathing and trying to make her own fall into sync. As if realizing her lack of movement was some kind of sign she had no intention of struggling, Lecter slowly removed his hand from over her mouth to let her breath easier.  "Shh… shh…" she felt him breath into her ear, soothingly.  His hand did not go far however, coming to rest on her shoulder so that his arm crossed over her chest.

Below, Graham was searching the steps again.  "Clarice?" he called, his voice becoming strained and frantic.  "Clarice?"

In her ear, she heard an eerily familiar echo of Graham's distressed voice.  "Clarice…" Her eyes closed and a shiver ran through her body so violently, that he held her closer to calm it, but still she made no noise, nor conscious movement.  The moment lasted forever.  The two of them standing on the landing, not speaking, not moving, barely daring to breathe, Will below them, staring up into the dark, spiraling world above for some sign.  A click and a whoosh let Clarice know that Will had once again entered a floor searching for her.

Still neither of them moved.  She wondered if she should say something, but could think of nothing clever or intelligent to say.  She could hear him inhaling deeply through his nostrils, as though re-familiarizing himself with a perfume long kept out of reach.  Then he moved his head as though to look over her, resting his chin against her hair, and his nose on the top of her head.  She took this chance to breath out loudly, deeply.  She felt him smile against her hair.

"Alone at last," he whispered as quietly as before.

Clarice thought about laughing.  In fact, she would have laughed if their predicament was not so serious.  _Why is it that he always makes cliché comments like that when I need him most to be serious?_

People will say we're in love… 

She smiled.  Now she knew exactly what to say.  "We have to stop meeting like this, Doctor," she said, trying to sound as cliché as he.

"And why is that, Clarice?" his voice purred, acknowledging her willingness to play the game.

"People will say we're in love."


	18. Chapter 18: Missing

"And how far from the truth would they be, little Starling?"

Clarice could think of nothing to say.  _ So much for trying to be clever, Clarice.  You just succeeded in bringing up the conversation you most wanted to avoid._  But for the second time that night, luck was on her side.  Will Graham entered the stairwell once again, up to the fifth floor, now.

"Clarice…" she heard Lecter's beckoning voice again, mocking Graham before he even began.

"Clarice?"  Will called yet again.  "Clarice?  Where the hell could she be?"  At that moment, Will's cell phone began to go off, the ringing echoing off the walls up through the well.  Above they heard Will pick up his phone.   "Graham," he proclaimed shortly.  

"Yeah, Jack… no… I can't find her… they've gotta be here…yeah, I'll call as soon as I find her…"

"It seems once again that I am in possession of something you want, Jackie," Lecter's voice glowed with satisfaction next to Clarice.

"Alright… yeah… bye…" Will snapped his phone off and once again pushed through a door.

Clarice quietly ventured, "We're running out of floors for him to check."

"Time to make our getaway, then," Lecter whispered and loosened his hold on her.  He slid out form behind her and over to the door leading to the roof, pulling her with only slight force by the arm.  He held the door for her, and let go of her arm to motion her through.  Clarice hurried up the next eight steps, to a second door, she placed her hand on the lever and waited.  Lecter pulled the door shut behind them with uttermost care, Clarice didn't even hear it make a sound, then he moved with no haste up the stairs to join her.  Clarice pushed the door open carefully, checking to make sure no one was on the roof waiting for them.

The view that met her was astounding.  In the pale moonlight, the towers of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo glimmered for her stunned gaze, in all the magnificence that had been recalled in the drawings on the walls of Dr. Lecter's cell in Baltimore.  Clarice exhaled in amazement.  

"You will not find a more beautiful view in all the world." Lecter whispered from directly behind her.  

"I see what you mean, Doctor," Clarice breathed in admiration.

"How could you?  Unless of course, you can see yourself."

Clarice turned her head slowly to meet his eyes for the first time that night.  They shined maroon in the moonlight, revealing nothing but a look of complete adoration.

He broke the moment first.  "I must say, Clarice, although it's obvious you didn't invite him yourself, Will is ruining the evening I had planned."

"Will?" she said feeling lightheaded.  "Oh… Will."

"Yes, Mr. Graham.  It won't be long until he discovers your shoes."

"Shoes?" Clarice said, confused.  "Oh…" she groaned after a moment.  "My shoes…"

"Yes, we have to get you back to your hotel and out of that dress."

Clarice was glad for the darkness, because she began blushing before she realized that showing up at the hotel and trying to act innocent while wearing a ball gown that matched the lost shoes would not be good.

"Come on, Cinderella," Lecter said resignedly.  "We'd better go before the pumpkin comes back with your shoes."


	19. Chapter 19: Torture

Getting down off the Belvedere turned out to be the easy part.  Lecter laid a board across the gap between it and the next building and then, carrying the board over to the next, so they passed four buildings over.  There, they entered a hotel and took the elevator down to the eight floor.

            In the lighted hallway, Clarice took her first good look at Lecter.  He was wearing a tuxedo over a red shirt.  Apparently, he had planned on going somewhere where he would want everyone to realize that the woman in red belonged to him alone.  Clarice felt too tired at the moment to feel outraged at his blatant statement of ownership.  Otherwise he looked much the same as the last time she saw him in the house on the Chesapeake.  She watched with morbid fascination as he used his left hand to insert the keycard into the door lock.  His shirt cuff covered any scaring and the hand seemed perfectly functional.

            Inside the room, she found that everything looked as though the maid had just been.  There was only one personal item inside the room.  On the bed, there was a small duffle bag.  Lecter immediately went towards it and un-zippered it to pull out a white t-shirt and a pair of gray sweatshirts.  These he handed to Clarice, and then pulled out a more casual suit for himself from where it was hanging in the closet.  Clarice just stared at him as he did this, holding the clothes he had just given her and looking perplexed in her scarlet gown.

            Lecter turned his cold eyes towards her, then away.  "If you'll excuse me, Clarice.  The bathroom is to your left," he said, and began to loosen his bowtie and unbutton his shirt.

            Whatever Clarice had been expecting when they got to their destination, it had not been this.  Dismissed, and feeling like a scolded child, Clarice slunk into the bathroom, and closed the door behind her soundly.  Inside, she stripped off her bracelet and gloves, then removed the earrings and placed them on the counter harder than she meant.  _Why are you so angry, Clarice?_ The voice said in her mind.  _You didn't get what you _wanted_?_  Clarice pointedly ignored the obvious slander.  She pulled the pins from her hair and tossed it free.  Then she washed the makeup from her face roughly, leaving her face ruddy.  She then reached around underhand to grasp for the zipper.  She couldn't reach it.  She tried overhand.  She growled in frustration.  _Another thing made by a man.  Putting the means of escape in the most inconvenient place_.  She went for the bathroom door, grabbing the handle forcefully.

            Meanwhile, Dr. Lecter had managed to get out of his tailed coat and dress shirt.  He pulled on a new shirt over his undershirt, and then exchanged his black tuxedo pants for gray tweed.  He was just tucking in his shirt, when he heard Clarice call.

            "Dr. Lecter?" her voice was timid, yet forceful.

            "Yes, Clarice?"

            "Could you help me?"

            Lecter strode towards the bathroom, wondering what she could possibly want.  He banished the "scenarios" that immediately came to mind.  Her face looked red.  Had she been crying?  Had he been so harsh?

            "Clarice?" his voice was so gentle, she forgot about his earlier discourteous dismissal momentarily.

            She looked shyly, demurely up into his eyes, then quickly looked away.  Why was he suddenly so tender, so worried?  "Could you… um, unzip me?" she finally managed, turning around and holding up her golden hair.

            "Certainly," he said, reaching out to grasp the small piece of metal in his large fingers.  Clarice stared straight ahead as the cold air hit her bare back.  Lecter blinked suddenly, the thought that a sleeveless gown would mean that she would not wear a bra had never crossed his mind.  He swallowed audibly, then pulled the zipper down to past her waist, almost to her buttocks, when her hand reached around to stop him from going any further.

            Clarice turned around, and releasing his hand, and with a small smile on her features.  "Thank you," she said quietly, and then slipped back into the bathroom.

            Lecter returned to take his blazer from the closet, wondering at Clarice's strange behavior.  It occurred to him only after he tucked his handkerchief into the pocket, that she had stopped him short because like her bra, her underwear were also missing.


	20. Chapter 20: Excuses

The cab ride back to Clarice's hotel was short and silent.  Lecter only spoke to tell the driver where to go, and then when they arrived to wait for him, while he got out.  Lecter got out and rounded the car quickly, not quickly enough to open the door for her, but enough to offer her his hand to help her step onto the sidewalk.  When she stepped up, they stood facing each other, but she would not look him in the eye.  He brought his other hand up to touch her cheek with his thumb and then guide her gaze from his shoes to his eyes.

            "I'm sorry this visit could not be longer, Clarice, but I will be leaving Florence immediately," he paused to kiss her knuckles softly.  "You can decide for yourself whether you want to inform the FBI of this."  Clarice said nothing in response to this and Lecter pressed on.  "Your hotel is through that alley," he nodded behind her.  "Enter through the door on the side and take the stairs, they probably won't notice you there."  He took a long look at her.  "We'll meet again soon, Clarice.  Maybe then you'll know what your answer is."  With that, he brushed his lips delicately against her cheek in a chaste kiss, and swiftly climbed back into the cab.

            Clarice stared after the car until it disappeared from her view, then she realized her peril, and flew down the alley, threw back the door, and bolted up the stairs to the fourth floor.  Down the hall she went quickly, looking to make sure no one saw her running.  _Thank God for small favors_, she thought as she fished the keycard out of her pocket, pushed through the door, and then slammed it behind her, leaning heavily on it.  She stood with alarm filling her as she took in her room.  All the lights were on.  Her drawers were pulled out and looked through and the mauve letters she had been reading on the floor now sat tossed on the bed.  _Ah shit!_ She thought.  _Will saw the letters._

            _Of course he saw the letters, how else do you think he figured out you were at the Belvedere?  Honestly, woman, some days you don't think at all._

            She had to get rid of the letters.  She would deny their existence; say Will must have been dreaming it all, something.  She looked around frantically.  Then she thought of it.  _I'll put them in the sink.  That way the ink will wash out.  And then… I'll flush them._  Clarice felt relaxed now that she knew what she would do, and she set about setting her plan into action.

            It took all of five minutes, really, and then there was nothing to do, but wait.  Wait until Will came and saw that she had managed to get back into bed somehow.  It would three long hours.  Sleep wouldn't come.  She ran over what Dr. Lecter had said over and over in her mind, replaying each syllable, each touch.  _Tell me you're not a lovesick puppy, Starling, just go ahead and try it._

            _I am not.  Those things might help me catch him._  She settled back to her thoughts, smiling smugly.

            _Yeah, uh-huh_, was the only reply.

            It was three thirty when Will came charging into the room to startle a finally asleep Clarice.  She looked up at him, genuinely astonished.

            "Will?" she asked, holding a hand over her eyes, to guard against the sudden light.  "What's going on?  What time is it?"

            Will just looked at her in amazement.  "Do you have any idea how dangerous your little stunt was?"

            "Stunt? What?  It's 3:30, Will.  Can't this wait until a civilized hour?"

            "No, it can't.  How did you get out, Clarice?"  Two Italian policemen and the hotel manager stood behind him.

            "I took the door like everyone else.  Look, if you're so clinging that you can't let me go for a simple jog alone, then I suggest it's time to pursue this investigation in our own separate ways."

            "Don't play stupid with me, Clarice.  I saw the letters.  I found your shoes.  I know you went to meet him at the Belvedere."

            "What is wrong with you, Will?  I don't ask you into my room and you assume I run off with a madman?  I hate to tell you this, Will, but there are plenty of available men in Florence who are not psychotic… or pathetic."  She stared pointedly at him.

            The officers behind Graham were looking apprehensive.  This was seeming more and more like a domestic dispute.  Will gritted his teeth just as his phone rang.  _Remind me never to agree to a cell phone again._

            "Graham!" he practically screamed into the phone.  "Yeah… we found her, Jack… she was at the hotel… says she went out for a jog… what about… hold on." He turned to Clarice.  "Where are the letters Clarice?  You can't say I dreamed those up."

            "I guess I have to since I don't have any letters!"

            "Alright, that's it," Will said, grabbing Clarice none too gently by the arm.  "Out.  You officers, search the room.  You're looking for some pieces of mauve paper."  He all but threw Clarice into the wall across the hall, and she knew she'd have a bruise where he'd grabbed her arm.

            "Will, when I find out what this is all about, you're going to look pretty damn stupid," she said, but Will was back on the phone again.

            "Yeah, Jack, I'm here… she says there were no letters… what… okay…"  Without a word, Will threw the phone at Clarice.

            "Starling," she reported.

            "Clarice, what the hell is going on?!  First, Will leaves me hanging on a pay phone, then he says he sees you leave in a evening gown!  Then, he finds letters from Lecter in your hotel room, and has the police down at the Belvedere looking for you, only to find you back in the room sleeping, saying you went out for a jog, and that there's no letters!  Now, explain to me what the hell I'm supposed to believe here?"

            "Honestly, Jack.  I don't really care what you believe at this moment.  It's four o'clock in the morning here and I've just been thrown out of bed by some crazy bastard who thinks I ran off to meet a psychotic.  Maybe I'll be able to sort some of this out in the morning, but right now, I'm going to sleep."

            "You're right we're going to sort this out.  You're getting on the next plane back to the states.  Do you hear me?" he shouted.

            But Clarice had just left the phone in the hallway, still on and wandered into Will's room to pull back the covers, and slip into some much needed sleep.


	21. Chapter 21: Trouble

Clarice never actually got that splendid sleep she had been imagining.  Within forty-five minutes, Will's search of her room was done.  No red dress, no letters, no picture.  And no one who had seen her dispose of any of it.  Will was, not surprisingly, furious.  He came storming into his room and the sight of Clarice sleeping peacefully on his bed amid the turmoil was more than enough to set him off.

            "Get up!" he yelled, pulling the covers off of her in a quick motion.

            Clarice blinked drowsily.  _When am I ever going to catch a break?  _"Wha-?" she managed wiping the sleeping dust from her eyes.

            "Well, after Jack finally realized you weren't on my cell phone, he called yours, and I picked up.  I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when we get back to Quantico, I will say that."  Will was stalking around the room, grabbing all his clothes and stuffing them none too carefully into his suitcase.  "You really screwed this one up, Starling.  I don't care what anyone else believes, I know what happened tonight, and I'm going to make sure you get booted off this case, whether I'm with the FBI or not."

            Clarice said nothing through his tirade.  _Best let him talk now, or you'll never get any sleep on the plane_.

            "The Italian police are going to drive you to the airport.  They'll sit with you there until I drop off the rent a car.  You're lucky Jack Crawford really likes you or I would handcuff you in the plane.  Now, go get your stuff packed.  I can't look at you."

            Clarice still said nothing, but climbed wearily to her feet and crossed to her room, to find everything torn apart.  _Trust cops to leave everything just the way they found it_, she thought disgustedly, looking at the two men stationed outside her room looking in on her suspiciously.  She wondered exactly how much Will had let his mouth run while she'd been sleeping.  She just shook her head and packed her things, pausing only to see Will walk past, obviously on his way to drop off the car.  

It really didn't take long to get her things together, so Clarice took one last look at her hotel room, and then approached the men outside.  The two men took one look at her and then approached.  "Signora," the one said, "I can carry that for you."

"No, thank you," Clarice said.  _Just what I need… a chauvinist helping me with my bags._

"I insist, Signora," he said, wrenching the handle of her suitcase out of her hand with more than a little force.  The other officer came up on her other side, and both linked their arms through hers.

Clarice had had just about enough of all of this.  She could take strangers going through her personal things, she could take her "partner" accusing her of something that honestly, she did do, but that he couldn't prove, and she could take being driven to the air port and babysat like some kid waiting for his parents to come home, but she would not - _would not_ stand for being treated like a criminal.

Clarice pulled her hands out from the officers' grasp and then while they were still reeling, grabbed her suitcase back from the first.  "No," she said.  "I insist."  Then she walked briskly down the hallway and jabbed the elevator button.  The two officers looked at each other and then ran down the hall after her.  They stood on either side of her, but neither dared take her suitcase or her arms again.  Clarice looked smug at this small victory, but it was short lived.

To be honest, it was the first time in her life that she had rode on this side of the bars in a police car.  _Probably the only time, too_.  She considered putting a huge smile on her face and waving to the people who would stop and turn their heads to see who was in the car, but finally resigned to staring daggers at anyone who dared look in her direction.  She found it amusing enough to pass the time on the way to the airport without falling asleep.

At the airport, the officers escorted her through security, checked her bag for her, and then took her down the ramp to the plane. Apparently some strings had been pulled to hold the 5:05 to D.C.  The officers stopped just short of entering the plane, only the flight attendants saw her with them, and they waited for ten minutes, until Will showed up.  Will only spoke to the officers to say thank you and then nodded Clarice to go ahead of him onto the plane.  Clarice let the flight attendant show her to her seat and sat down none too gracefully.  Will sat next to her, but it was unspoken between them that they would not be speaking on the flight home.

Clarice turned on her side to get comfortable, and was asleep before the plane took off.

What startled Clarice awake was the plane touching down in Washington.  She had slept through the entire flight.  Not that that disappointed either her or Will, but she would never have imagined she was that tired.  She exhaled noisily.  She could practically see Jack Crawford's livid face now.  As the plane taxied, she chanced a glance at Will's face.  He seemed calmer than that morning, but still not friendly.

With no carryon bags, Clarice and Will were the first to disembark.  "Have a nice day," said one of the cheery flight attendants.

Clarice put on an equally cheeky smile and said to her, "Not likely, but you should certainly have a go at it."

Will's strong grip on her arm told her that his anger had not decreased one iota, but he was determined to put on a good show for everyone else.  She could practically feel Jack's disapproving gaze even before she saw the opening at the end of the ramp, but sure enough, there stood Jack Crawford, in his tan trench coat and thin metal spectacles.  Clarice couldn't bare to look in his eyes, to face his disappointment, to know she had failed him entirely, even though Will could prove nothing.  He didn't even look at her.

"Will?  Could you do me a favor?  Go wait at the bag check and get Clarice's bag.  I'm going to head right over.  Thanks."  Then Will was gone.  Clarice wondered if it was a sign of how repulsive he felt about her presence.

Crawford didn't speak to her all the way through the airport.  They passed through the metal detectors and then the doors, but still he didn't offer one word.  When they had passed through the front doors, finally Jack turned to her.

"Clarice, no one at the Bureau knows anything about what happened over there.  You're going to be allowed to continue your job almost the same as before, just no field trips.    We'll have some very qualified people to check out any leads you might find."

"So that's what it's come down to, Jack?  You can't trust me, but you can't find him without me?  So you'll chain me to that desk in the cellar and use me just like you tried to use me as bait in Florence?  Don't think I don't know, Jack.  Don't think I don't know what you've been using me for for all these years.  I know, and do you want to know something, Jack?  I don't need you.  I don't need you as a mentor, and I certainly don't need you as a boss."  With this, Clarice reached into her pocket and took out her badge.  "Consider this my resignation, Jack."

As soon as the leather of the badge had hit his hand, Clarice retracted hers and proceeded to climb into the backseat of a taxi.

"Clarice - " he began, but stopped.

Clarice pointed a single finger at him.  "You'll never find him without me, do you understand that, Jack?  Never."  And so ended the career of Special Agent Clarice M. Starling; with the slamming of a yellow taxi door.


	22. Chapter 22: Gone

Ardelia Mapp was startled away from the late night Oprah rerun by the sound of her front screen door slamming shut.  Thoughts ran through her head.  _Who could that be?  Should I call?  Clarice isn't supposed to be home for three days._

"Delia?" Ardelia exhaled gratefully as Clarice's voice wafted through their duplex.

"I'm here, Clarice," she said, clicking off the television and bounding out of her seat.  "Whoa, girl," she stopped short as she caught sight of Clarice.  "What cat dragged you in?  And why aren't you in Florence?"  She hugged Clarice briefly.

"It's a long story," Clarice smiled.  "It's good to be home."

Ardelia laughed.  "That it is, but you'll have to save that story for tomorrow.  I have to be at the doctor's by ten."

"Alright."

"Hey, I went shopping yesterday.  Help yourself to anything," Ardelia called as she walked upstairs.

"Thanks.  I will."

When Clarice heard Ardelia's door shut, she went straight into action.  She looked through everything on her side of the house, and other than a few photos of her father, she really saw nothing worthwhile there.  Even the photos seemed to mock her.  _I let you down, Daddy.  You know I tried though.  I really really tried._  She sighed and then walked upstairs to look at her bedroom.  _Eleven years and what do I have to show for it?  Nothing, that's what, nothing.  I saved Catherine Martin, I brought down Buffalo Bill, I even went toe to toe with Hannibal Lecter more than once and lived to tell about it, and what do I get?  Nothing, not even a fucking medal._  Clarice sank down with her hands over her face, letting the tears come as silently as they would.

Would they give you a medal, do you think, Clarice? Would you have it professionally framed and hang it on your wall to remind you of your courage and incorruptibility? All you would need for that is a mirror.

Clarice sniffled and looked up.  Across her bedroom she saw her reflection in the full-length mirror by the bureau.  _Problem is, when I look in the mirror, doctor, I see someone I don't know.  Someone I wouldn't want to know.  And do you know why I see that stranger in the mirror, doctor?_  Clarice gritted her teeth as she moved on her knees towards the mirror.  _Because you made me see her.  Because you were the very first mirror that didn't lie_.

Clarice looked her reflection right in the eye.  _You're thirty-three years old.  You have no husband, no children, no friends, and now you don't even have the job you sacrificed them all to.  And this mirror would never tell you what you've lost or what you could be, only what you are in this very second._

And what would Lecter do if he could see you at this very moment? 

Clarice mumbled something to herself.

What was that?  I didn't quite catch you.

"He'd probably laugh at me!  Okay?  Are you happy?"

Why would he laugh at you? 

"Because…" she said, staring at her reflection, but addressing someone else entirely.  "Because you were right… you were always right."

Ardelia awoke to the sound of squealing tires.  She wouldn't have thought anything of it except Clarice had been acting strangely earlier.  She climbed reluctantly out of her bed and padded over to the window.  She pulled aside the curtains just in time to see Clarice's mustang turning right at the end of the street.

There were no lights on downstairs when Ardelia went down.  Everything was as it should be, Clarice's things were all jut as she had seen them last.  As she went back upstairs, she had the thought that maybe it hadn't been Clarice who had taken her car, but when she peeked into her bedroom, she saw everything just as it had always been, save no Clarice curled up in bed.

Ardelia just shrugged to herself then.  _She'll be here in the morning, must have went to get some ice cream or something.  Where would she really go without taking any of her stuff? _she thought, and then went back to bed.  Ardelia Mapp would never see Clarice Starling again.


	23. Chapter 23: Maybe

Will Graham stared bleakly at the tiny stack of papers concerning Clarice Starling.  There were as many warnings as commendations.  Will sighed.  Finding Clarice Starling was just as difficult, if not more difficult than, finding Hannibal Lecter.  No one, not even the roommate who had seen Starling pull out of their driveway at 3:00 a.m., knew anything about Starling, about her habits, her diet, her hobbies, not a thing.  There was no family for her to visit, that was for sure.  No friends either.  She went straight from an orphanage to training at the Academy.  But why was Will, a freelance detective more attuned to finding serial killers than anything else, trying to find a woman who had committed no crime he could prove?

"If you find Starling, you'll find Lecter," Jack Crawford had said.

"Yeah, right, Jack," Will said aloud to himself.  "But she's even more difficult to find than he is."

Will looked again at the pictures taken from Lake Tohee, somewhere north of Philadelphia.  Three months after she disappeared, a local fisherman snagged upon something in the water there.  It turned out to be Starling's car, but there was no sign of Starling.  The wear on the car suggested it had been in the water for the better part of those three months.  They dredged the lake.  They didn't find a body.

Will pieced it together in his mind again.  She gets up at 3:00 a.m., she drives over two hundred miles, a little over four hours, and then dumps her car.  Will never even considered the thought of suicide, even before the divers came back.  From the small town nearest the lake, it was about equidistant to Newark Airport, in Northern New Jersey, or to Philadelphia Airport, both featuring International flights.  Not much longer from Newark to any of the airports in and around New York City.  So Will went to Philadelphia, Newark, Le Guardia, and JFK Internationals.  Three months after the event, no one could remember if they had seen any one resembling Starling, and Will just asked for a list of all the places that had flights leaving around the time that Starling would have arrived at the airport.

All told, there were more than three dozen places she could have hit, and that was just on the first ticket.  She could be anywhere by now.  Her bank accounts emptied, and nothing taken from her house except a few burnable computer discs. Will had a feeling that whatever was on those computer discs held a clue to where she had gone, but when he tried to turn the computer on, he found it no longer worked.  The lab said that she had fried it, destroyed all its components and there was no way of knowing what she burned before she did it.  All the tech told him was that whatever Starling had wanted to hide, she had really wanted to hide it.  The computer was burnt out three ways.

And now, two years later, there were still no further clues, no sightings, no miraculous lab technician's discovery.  Two years later, and all that existed of Clarice Starling was a stack of papers barely thicker than a copy of _Vanity Fair_.  Will leaned back in his little folding chair and stared around Hannibal's House.  Friends from Behavioral Science had joked with him, "You've inherited the kingdom".   He rubbed his eyes, smiling ruefully, and stared at the clock.  Three minutes until noon.  Will stared bleary-eyed at the clock for the next three minutes, and then grabbed his lunch and the TV remote control the second the little hand joined its partner on the 12.

He flipped through the channels with agitation, wondering at how anyone could stand to watch this trash.  He stopped on the AMC movie channel so he could take a bite of his sandwich, and then continued to click with animosity.  Lunch was the only part of the day Will enjoyed anymore.  He didn't have to think.  Didn't have to consider retrying an old lead.  Didn't have to _be_.  Will paused again on the E! Network to take a bite.  Some sort of fashion show was going on.  It was amazing how the less these women wore, the more it was deemed "fashion".  Will was considering switching the channel.  After all, he didn't want anyone wandering in here and seeing him watching these scantily-clad women like some sort of looser who hadn't got laid in twelve years.

Will was bringing his cola to his lips when he saw her.  For just a split second, he swore he saw a woman with a gray beauty mark high on her right cheek.  He stared at the television with his mouth open, his soda pouring down his chest and onto his pants.  He learned forward ina panic.  _Am I imagining things?_  He grabbed the phone and dialed.

"Hey Sue.  Sue?  Could you get me someone from the E! Network on the phone?  It's really important…. Yeah, put me through."

There was a small pause, then Will continued.  "Hello?  Hello, My name is Will Graham from the FBI Behavioral Science Department.  This program that you have on now, a fashion show.  Is it a recording…. Yes… okay… um… where was it recorded, and when?"  Will made furious scribbling on a tablet.  "Where are your headquarters?  Oh… oh… well, could you overnight me a copy of that video?  Yes, thank you…. I really appreciate this… thank you… alright… bye".

Will sat back and took a deep breath.  He decided it would be better not to tell Crawford until he was sure what he saw.  People already thought that he was loosing his mind from spending too much time down in the basement. He looked at his crooked writing on the yellow tablet:

Paris                 15 March

Then he slowly began to put Xs on the days he had forgotten to mark off.  All the way from September 23rd, right up until March 28th.


	24. Chapter 24: Consultation

Ardelia Mapp did not feel good today.  There was this gnawing sensation in her stomach that she could only attribute to nerves, having just eaten lunch.  _Why would Will Graham, of all people, want to see me, in his office?_  Ardelia had not spoken to the man since two years ago when he had showed up at her house, hours after she had seen Clarice drive away, and after calling incessantly, to question her non-stop about the all of two minutes she had spent with Clarice between the time of her return from Florence to the moment she had sped away.

Ardelia smirked at her own thoughts.  _His office.  Only Will Graham would ever consider Hannibal's House to be _his_ office._  She walked, none too quickly, down towards the basement room that Graham had taken over after Clarice's disappearance.  _What could he possibly want to talk to me about, now, two years after, it's not like I might have remembered anything more…_

Ardelia cautiously pushed the curtain aside.  She smiled wryly.  Everything was just as she remembered it from her lunchtime visits to Clarice.  The dim room, lit only by that glowing wall that paid homage to one of the FBI's most wanted, the scattered papers, and the cassette tapes of the dungeon conversations strewn about.  Ardelia smiled again.  No one but Clarice ever referred to the Baltimore Asylum as the dungeon.  Even the television screen remained lit on the input channel, just the way Clarice had always left it, so engrossed in her thoughts as she always was.

The smell was a little different, though.  No trace of Clarice's expensive perfume or leather shoes and handbag were present in the room any longer.  It smelled vaguely masculine now, with traces of aftershave, cologne, and strangely enough, pork rinds.  The room smelled of dust, now, something Clarice would never have stood for.  And yet, there was a heat in the air; an electricity that refused to fade.  As though part of Clarice still lingered there.

"Good Afternoon, Agent Mapp," Will Graham spoke from the darkness.

Ardelia immediately focused her eyes on where she had been accustomed to seeing Clarice sitting during her visits.  Graham was not there.  Her eyes wandered to find him sitting at a small card table a distance away from Clarice's chair.  Ardelia managed to keep the sneer in her eyes from asserting itself on her lips.  _His office, indeed_.

"Good Afternoon, Mr. Graham," her voice betrayed her lack of respect for a man with no real position in the organization.

"Would you mind sitting down?" he asked, gesturing to a chair near his desk.  Ardelia moved around to sit facing Will, but said nothing.  Will seemed unsure of himself now that he had her in front of him.  "Agent Mapp, I know, I, uh, asked you a lot of questions on the night that Clarice disappeared, but, uh, I didn't ask you about Clarice herself, really."  He seemed to be searching the glowing display for some sort of support.  Ardelia waited expectantly.  Whatever Graham wanted from her, she certainly wasn't going to give it freely.  Graham finally steeled himself to ask what he had really been wondering for two years.  "Um, what would you say was Clarice's relationship with Hannibal Lecter?"

Ardelia didn't manage to catch the sneer.  "Relationship?  Uh, I'm sorry, Mr. Graham, are you suggesting Clarice had a personal relationship with Lecter?"  Even Ardelia didn't believe the confused look on her face looked genuine, but it didn't matter.  Her emphasis on the word "personal" didn't make Will's follow up question any easier.

"Well, no, not exactly.  I just mean," Will paused for a long moment, opening and closing his mouth as though just on the verge of saying something, but not quite being able to say it.  Finally he said, "Yes, that is what I'm suggesting."

"Mr. Graham," Ardelia put on the mask of a mother consoling a silly child about adult things he couldn't possibly understand.  "Clarice spent much of her career hiding from the demons her conversations with Lecter gave rise to.  Besides the obvious fact that she is, was a special agent for the FBI and he is a wanted murderer, I should think you would realize that Clarice's interests with Dr. Lecter were purely professional, no matter what his designs for her were."

Will didn't miss the chance.  He jumped in.  "So, you believe that Lecter had, for lack of a better word, a _thing_ for Clarice?"

"I don't know if it was a _thing_, Mr. Graham.  After all, two letters in the course of ten years doesn't really speak of a burning crush on someone."

"But what about the incident on the Chesapeake?  Surely, you don't think he only wanted to make Krendler into a dinner for her?"

"Mr. Graham, I really have no idea what runs through the mind of a cannibal.  The only person who might have had a chance of knowing left without a single word two years ago - "

"You believe, then, that Clarice had an insight as to how his mind worked?"  Will interrupted.

Ardelia exhaled loudly through her nose.  "Look at this place, Mr. Graham," she said, indicating the whole of Hannibal's House.  "This was entirely set up for the purpose of her getting into his mind.  Whether she succeeded or not, I don't know.  I do know that she was the only person that Lecter ever had a civil conversation with, let alone was allowed back in on several occasions."

"You believe Lecter showed her a favoritism?"

Ardelia laughed outright, but said nothing.

 "Fair enough," Will conceded.  "Do you believe she would go looking for him, without the pull of the FBI behind her?"

"I really don't know.  I wouldn't put it past her."

"Do you think she would search him out for personal reasons or for - "

Will was cut short by another bark of laughter.  "The man both started and ended her career with the FBI.  She would never have gotten anywhere without him, and probably would still be here if not for him.  If she came face to face with him, I couldn't tell you what she'd do.  Try to capture him?  Shoot him?  Or maybe she really has gone nuts.  Maybe she's looking for Lecter so that she can have one last standoff with him before he kills her."

They were silent for many long moments, lost in thoughts of how that very strange reunion might turn out.  Finally Ardelia said, "Is that all, Mr. Graham?"

"Actually, no.  I didn't ask you down here just to chat.  I wanted to show you something."

A whole list of perverted ideas ran through Ardelia's mind at this statement, and she bit her lip.  She nodded, not trusting herself to contain a giggle if she spoke her agreement.

Will got up and walked over to the small television set still stationed on input.  He pushed a vhs tape into the player and waited while it loaded.  Ardelia's brows furrowed as she saw the fashion show spring up in bright color and sound.  Will pointed the control at the player and suddenly paused it, in the middle of a tall Asian woman spinning in something that contained way too many feathers to be tasteful.

"There," Will said, his finger pressing against the screen, just below the face of a woman in a fashionable hat and glasses.  The light from flashing cameras made it impossible to see her eyes, but Ardelia squinted closely at the face that Will pointed to.  Will watched her face carefully.  Ardelia's eyes moved over the face, and he saw only the smallest flash of recognition when she noticed the gunpowder burn across the right cheek.

"You think that's Clarice, Mr. Graham?"

"The thought had crossed my mind."

"Aren't you supposed to be looking for Hannibal Lecter, Mr. Graham?" Ardelia asked pointedly.

Will shrugged.  "I have the fleeting suspicion that where you find one, you'll find the other."

"Well, keep looking Mr. Graham.  First of all, if Clarice didn't want to be found, I don't think she would be stupid enough to change her appearance, but keep the most identifying mark.  And the second thing is, play back the tape again, the mark moves.  It's a shadow, Mr. Graham.  And you're grasping at it."  She smiled consolingly at him, and turned to leave.

Outside the curtain, Ardelia breathed a silent sigh of relief and then moved briskly up the stairs, hoping beyond hope that Graham actually believed her.

On the other side of the curtain, Will Graham pondered the impossible loyalty that Ardelia Mapp showed Clarice Starling, all the while watching the tape over and over again, and seeing the mark upon the woman's right cheek, which remained constant no matter how the light changed.


	25. Chapter 25: Freedom

There's a strange sense that comes over one when they find themselves free.  Like the feeling of relief that you have when a full room of strangers is reduced to just you and the two people you actually know.  The buzzing in your head from all the conversations you ever heard seems to stop and you realize that nothing anyone ever said to you was really all that important.  Clarice Starling had known this sensation for over a year now.  Technically, the long-legged woman sipping a tropical drink on the corner bistro was not Clarice Starling.  Her name was Marguerite Sanford.  Marguerite Sanford was the raven-haired beauty that Clarice had always secretly dreamed she'd grow up to be.  After she had surpassed all her father's expectations, of course.  Marguerite Sanford wore six-inch Gucci heels; short, but professional skirts, and double-breasted suit jackets.  She also had a particular flare for making huge hats and sunglasses look good.  It was an expensive life she lived now, but one that she had become accustomed to by studying the best.

And how did Marguerite Sanford afford everything that came with this fine life?  By using every last penny that Clarice Starling had ever saved to begin an interior design business.  _Conceptions de Serenity, _the business she owned and loved, hardly had any input from her these days.  She had 62 employees, who worked in 9 peer groups for the current 16 clients that were pending.  Marguerite Sanford spent her days lounging at cafés and going to fashion and design shows to see the latest fabrics and styles.  She sipped her umbrella topped drink peacefully, not realizing that an ocean away, Will Graham had stumbled onto her little piece of paradise, and was in fact, heading towards it first class on the Concord.

"Margie!  Bonjour Margie!"  Across the street, another richly dressed women, waved aside traffic and crossed the Parisian street as though the world waited upon her word.  

Clarice's boldly painted lips curled into a smile.  "Bonjour, Stella."

"I am so sorry I am late, ma cher," Stella didn't look sorry at all.  In the entire time she had known the woman, Clarice had never known Stella to arrive anything but "fashionably late".  Clarice leaned forward to exchange the twin pecks on the cheek that she had originally abhorred and now found just a little comforting.

"Don't worry, Stel, I'm only on my second drink," Clarice smiled.  To be truthful, she had only arrived at the time agreed upon so she could get in that first drink before Stella arrived.  Usually she told Stella a time a half hour before she really wanted to meet.  She motioned gracefully for a waiter.  "Do you want something to drink?" she asked Stella.

"Oui," Stella proceeded to order a salad and water.

"And for you, Madame?" the waiter questioned Clarice in English.

Clarice surprised him by ordering her sandwich and a third, this time non-alcoholic drink, in French.  Clarice remembered someone once saying that you must speak a language for seven years in order to be considered fluent.  Three years of French in High School had definitely not prepared her for this life.  When she wasn't dining at fine restaurants and bistros, she survived mainly on a diet of order in pizza and French soap operas.  The shows, which at the very least could be described as distasteful, had quickly opened her to the world of French slang.  She idly wondered if Francesca would ever get her act together and marry Louis.

Clarice was brought abruptly from her thoughts as Stella repeated her new name, apparently not for the first time.  "Hmm?" Clarice finally managed, refocusing her eyes on Stella's suddenly smug little face.

"Margie, you're daydreaming again!"  Stella seemed absolutely gleeful over this.  "Now, come, enough fooling around!  Tell me his name."

Clarice laughed.  "Honestly, Stella, there isn't a name to tell."

"You can't fool me, Margie.  You're always sitting alone at little bistros like this.  Watching the people go by, as if all the time expecting someone.  You were even doing it today!  You are always staring off.  Thinking of something else.  Some_one_ else." Stella leaned forward and caught her eye even through the sunglasses Clarice had pushed up to cover her expression.

"Stella, I was waiting for you.  Of course I was looking around to see if you were coming!  Now tell me, what was so urgent that you wanted to meet this afternoon."

Stella gave a little pout as if unwilling to give up the chance of teasing Clarice, but as always, a chance to talk about Stella was a chance Stella couldn't pass up.

"Well, you see, there's this party tonight…"

Clarice groaned.

Stella went on, undaunted.  "And all of fashionable Paris will be there.  You know, the designers and the musicians and the directors and the other actors and …" she paused dramatically.  "And the writers will be there…"

"So you want me to go with you to protect you in case Charles is there."

"No!" Stella seemed outraged at the very thought.  "I want you to go to protect me because I _know_ Charles will be there." Stella put on her best pout.  "Please, Margie?  Please?  You know how he scares me."

Clarice was allowed a slight repast as her sandwich was brought.  She stared at the little air holes in the wheat bread.  Clarice imagined Stella was supposed to be one of her closest friends here.  She was self-centered, idiotic, and shallow.  Charles, on the other hand, the man Stella accused of stalking her, was brilliant.  He wrote screenplays, most of which were too intellectual to ever make it in Hollywood, and only a few of which were dumbed down enough to make it in Paris.  Charles was, truthfully, one of the most luminous people she had ever met.  He was practically the only one in Paris she really enjoyed talking to.  Unfortunately, Charles had ironically become star struck with Stella.  Not that Clarice had any romantic ideas about Charles, but she often thought he could definitely do better than the superficial Stella de Barbaou.

Stella was still eyeing her closely when she glanced up, but her face immediately went into a pout when she noticed the movement of Clarice's head.  "Alright, I'll go."  Stella looked self-satisfied, as if there could be no other outcome but this.  But I have nothing to wear…"

"Oh, I've already taken care of that," Stella sipped her drink.  "I ordered you that beautiful dress you liked at the fashion show.  You know, the pink one that would have looked better in violet?"  Stella didn't wait for Clarice to acknowledge this fact.  "Well, I had it ordered, in violet, and it's waiting down at Marie St. Claire's.  You have an appointment with Julie.  She's freed her entire afternoon to make the dress perfect for you."

Clarice might have been impressed with Stella's thoughtfulness if she had done it for any reason other than to help herself stay away from her ex-fiancé.  Also, she didn't like Stella's cheek of assuming that she would go.  _One of these times, I'm really going to leave her hanging_, she vowed to herself.

"What time do I have to be there?"

"Half past twelve," Stella said confidently.

"Stella," Clarice was looking past her head at the tower clock.  "That's in fifteen minutes."  She waved the waiter over.  "It'll take me that just to get across town.  Box this, please?" she indicated her untouched sandwich to the waiter.

"Well," Stella said, settling down to leisurely eat her salad with a little smile.  "You'd better hurry and hail a taxi or whatever it is you Americans call it."  

Clarice glared and snatched the box from the waiter's hands.  She didn't bother to pay.  She figured Stella owed her a lot more than just a lunch.


	26. Chapter 26: Boredom

Clarice finally managed to walk into her flat at quarter after five.  While it only took ten minutes for Julie to establish what needed to be done for the dress, it took a lot longer for Clarice to find complimentary jewelry that wouldn't bankrupt her.  Now, she trundled into her flat, the gown bagged over her shoulder, and a little straw handled bag from the jewelers, the bag that corresponded to the dress makers bag filled with her gloves and shoes, and a third bag with two new hat boxes clutched in her other hand.  She kicked the door closed, and dropped the whole lot unceremoniously by the front door.  She disentangled her feet from the pile and lurched forward to punch the little flashing red button on her answering machine.

            "Marguerite, it's Madison, about the Cheney account, they decided to change the living room to fuchsia.  What should I do with all the royal blue Ming vases?"

            Clarice paused the message and snatched up the phone, pinching the bridge of her nose with the other hand.  "Madison, yeah…. I got your message.  Get Gabby on the line… Hey, Gabby, Madison's client wants to change color, so we have six Ming style vases in royal blue.  You think your client would be willing to lean a little more towards an Oriental rather than Indian for their dining room?  Good, great.  Problem solved.  Anything else?"  Ten minutes later, Clarice finally hung up the phone, erased the message and pushed for the next one.

            "Margie!" Clarice positively cringed at Stella's voice.  "It's me, Margie.  Look, I was thinking, why don't I come over tonight and bring Gary and a little something to eat and we can get dolled up together!  You know, girl stuff?  Yes, I know Gary's not a girl, but he likes men, so close enough!"  Stella's recorded voice laughed obnoxiously at her own joke.  Clarice ground her teeth.  "Anyway, I'll be over at five, ma cher.  Okay?  Perfect?  Bye!"

            Clarice blew at a little piece of hair that had come undone.  It was 5:27 now, which meant that Stella would be here…

The bell rang, but the instant Clarice turned around to get it, the door pushed open and Stella appeared beaming, in a fur coat and with two men behind her carrying numerous boxes.  Without seeing Clarice in the dark room, she announced "Margie!  Oh, Margie!  I'm here!  Oh…"  Stella caught sight of the pile of clothes right in front of the door.  Her tone changed slightly.  "Margie?  Margie, are you okay?  Max, why don't you go in first," she stood aside for her manservant to go ahead.

"It's alright, Stella.  I'm fine.  Just a little exhausted," Clarice switched on the lighting in the dark room.

"Oh, wonderful.  I was a tad worried," Stella pushed Max out of the way without compunction now that there was no eminent danger.

Clarice gave a small smile.  "Come in, Max… Gary.  Make yourselves at home."

Stella already had, she was moving around the flat touching and commenting on everything.  Clarice figured there was nothing good in any of the comments, so she ignored Stella for the moment, picking up her things where she had dropped them.  Stella was still jabbering nonstop when she had finished.  _What a long night it will be_, Clarice thought wearily.

Clarice gave a belabored sigh.  _Never again_, she vowed in her mind, _Never again_.  Stella was a few feet away, giggling obnoxiously at the seven men surrounding her.  Clarice gave a little smile to Charles, who had brought her a glass of champagne.

"So, how are you, Charlie?" Clarice asked, politely.

"Surviving, I suppose," he gazed wistfully at Stella.  "I can't imagine what she sees in those guys.  They hardly have a brain cell between them."

Clarice scoffed.  "I have a feeling she's more interested in what's in their trust funds rather than their skulls."

Charles smiled.  "What about you, then, Marge?  You're beautiful, intelligent, a good conversationalist, why don't you have a date tonight?"

"Why, Charles," Clarice laughed, genuinely.  "Are you offering?"  She grinned at his flushed expression.  "I was kind of an add-on guest.  You know, riding in on someone else's coat tails."

"Ah, I see.  Crowd control.  Or should I say Charles control."

Clarice rolled her eyes as she smiled into her champagne glass.  It wasn't a bad party to be honest.  The best and brightest of Paris gathered in one hotel.  And she got to talk to one of the brightest.  Too bad he was hung up on the gilded star of Stella de Barbaou.  Clarice smiled.  Charles wasn't really her type truthfully.  Too sweet, too forgiving, too… safe.  _Aye, there's the rub_, Clarice reflected ruefully.  There was just something profoundly safe about Charles that made him nothing more than friend material.  A close friend, perhaps.  Someone interesting to talk to.  But hardly someone she would consider becoming intimately acquainted with.

"Madame?" a voice inquired to her left.  A waiter held out a tray to take her now empty champagne flute.

"Oh, merci," Clarice said.

Charles placed his glass next hers on the tray and then proposed, "We shouldn't wallow around here all night.  Would you like to dance?"

"I'd be delighted," Clarice agreed, and they swept into the center of the ballroom.


	27. Chapter 27: Detected

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.  Hannibal Lecter wondered, and not for the first time, why he was always reminded of cheesy film quotes whenever he came near Clarice Starling.  Of course, he wasn't at first sure that it was in fact Clarice Starling who had suddenly appeared, once again, in the midst of his world.  A first he thought the woman's resemblance was a mere coincidence.  A coincidence that in fact was just enough to throw his world off balance.  A second look helped to reassure Lecter that this raven-haired woman had only a passing semblance to Clarice Starling.  Still, twelve years of freedom had not been easily bought, and even if the newspapers could be believed, that Clarice was in fact missing in action, it would hurt nothing to make absolutely sure.

So Lecter chose a dance partner, an unassuming woman he had never seen before.  Attractive, he supposed, in a way that almost made one sick to the stomach for want of intelligence to match the looks.  Then Lecter swayed and laid on the charm, all the while moving the woman closer and closer to the woman in the lilac colored dress that had for the moment become the center of his reality.

His dance partner was caught in an unattractive laugh when Lecter suddenly tightened his hold on her.  His eyes had never moved from her face, but now he smiled reassuringly.  She calmed again, and chatted to him about herself.  

Lecter told himself to breath.  It was her.  Without even looking, he knew.

You use Evian skin cream, and sometimes your wear L'Air du Temps, but not today.

Dr. Lecter smiled out of the corner of his mouth, just as he looked in that direction with his eyes.  Yes, today, he thought, carefully re-schooling his features when he realized his dance partner had caught the predatory grin appearing across them.  He moved her around gently; to get a good look at the woman he now knew was Clarice Starling.

            The violet dress was certainly not a color she could have pulled off in her old hair color, he noted.  The dark tresses seemed to suite her; dark, compelling, and sultry.  It was done up, and littered with little jewels to set off a dress that had the complete opposite approach than the one he had dressed her in while in the Chesapeake house.  This time, the dramatic plunge revealed her smooth curving back.  He felt an uncalled for surge of jealousy as her dance partner swung around so he could see his face.  Blonde and mustachioed, Lecter could hardly imagine what Clarice would want with Charles Montaigne, the leading joke of Paris film society.  Lecter found his work dry and barely worth filming, although it beat most of the other rubbish that came from his peers.

            Clarice must have found him charming, however, for as she spun around back into his view, she was laughing, her eyes closed to reveal the violet eye shadow running from her lashes up to her perfectly sculpted eyebrows.  He considered her carefully, wondering if he should make some indication of his presence, see how she reacted.

            He never knew what inspired it.  If she knew someone watched her.  If she knew it was him.  It didn't really matter, he supposed, but as he was thinking of revealing his existence to her, her eyes flashed up, bright and wary, and locked onto his.

            For Clarice Starling, everything narrowed.  The room was gone, the music was gone, Charles was gone.  She realized before this moment, for the last two years, she had not existed.  How could she ever possibly exist outside the wash of those radiating red eyes?  Oh, didn't you realize, Clarice, that little voice nagged, didn't you realize that you only exist in between the time when he comes and goes?  Didn't it cross your mind that you only live in his presence?

            She didn't blink.  Whoever this creature was that Clarice Starling had become, she had lost none of her convictions.  Lecter glowed with pleasure.  I win again, Jackie.  I created this one.  Does she even remember your name? It doesn't matter.   I assure you, after tonight, there will only be one name in her mind, in her heart, and on her tongue.

            The dance stopped, Clarice smiled at Charles and stepped away from him.  At the same time, Dr. Lecter nodded to his partner, and stepped aside.  They said nothing. Neither smiled, neither blinked.  His hands came to rest at the small of her back, pressing into the warm skin there, while her arms ran up his lapels to intimately rest on the nape of his neck.

            Charles was a little startled at Clarice's sudden change of partner.  Clarice didn't often dance at such events, especially with men she didn't know.  Charles was not the only one to notice Clarice's new dance mate.  Stella appeared instantaneously.  "Who is that, Charles?  Who is Margie dancing with?"

            "I don't know," Charles said, for the first time in a long time, not dazzled by Stella talking to him.

            "Well, someone must know.  He's handsome for an older gentleman.  She must know him from the gallery…" and so on, Stella rambled.  Charles turned his eyes to her with a sudden look of disgust at the shallow person beside him.

On the other side of the ballroom, there was one person who had absolutely no misgivings about where Clarice Starling had met Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  And now all Will Graham needed to do was to find the woman who had so foolishly decided not to remove the beauty mark above her right cheek.


	28. Chapter 28: Fly

When the music faded, Clarice blinked and stepped back.  Lecter tilted his head quizzically.  "You look lost, little Starling."

She smiled.  "Funny.  I was just thinking I had been found."

"By more than one person," he said, nodding his head off behind her.  She went to turn.  "Not so fast.  Slowly," he cautioned.  She nodded and obeyed, casually turning and laughing, as though embarrassed by something he had said.  When she turned back however, her face was much different.  Her lips were tense and her eyes wide.  Lecter smiled.  "Once again, I do not believe he was on your guest list, either."

Clarice's eyes were darting.  She needed an exit.  She needed to get away.  Escape.  And then she felt something seize on her hand like steel, stopping her rapidly beating heart in an instant.  And she realized this was not the first time this scene had played out.  This had happened before, with the actors in different parts, with a pair of handcuffs locking their hands together, instead of his vice-like grip.

I came halfway around the world to watch you run, Clarice. Let me run, eh?

She knew from past experience she couldn't win against him in a physical fight.  She also knew there would be no way of releasing herself from his grip unless he permitted her to.  If she struggled, she would cause a scene, and nothing calls the sharks like turbulent waters.  But if she stood still and waited it out, it was only a matter of time until Will recognized one or both of them.  Any way she looked at it, Clarice was trapped by Hannibal Lecter, more now than ever when she was caught in the refrigerator door.

She did the only thing she could think of.  Grabbing Lecter by the lapels, she pulled him to her and brought her cheek against his, burying her face in his shoulder and pushing his down into hers.  She hoped it would stave Will off for a few more minutes.

The sudden level of intimacy Clarice was putting between them shocked Lecter at first, but then he realized it was all business. He relaxed his grip on her wrist and put it around her waist.  "This will only prevent Will from finding us for a few minutes.  What do you propose to do, Clarice?  Claim you caught me, saved all the world all by yourself?"

"And get a medal?  No, Dr. Lecter.  All I ever needed to remind me of my courage and incorruptibility was a mirror.  But the only mirror I ever found that didn't lie was in your eyes."  They said nothing for a long moment, and Will's eyes continuously swept the floor, certain that his information was good.  Certain that the light of all Paris would be here, as the concierge said.

  Clarice pulled her eyes from Will and locked them with Hannibal Lecter's charged gaze.  "You told me once," she said, "that you came half way around the world to watch me run."  She put her lips right next to his ear.  "Now let me run."

It was sudden and violent.  Like every passion Hannibal Lecter had.  From absolute stillness to blinding action, was only a second, but Clarice found herself once again pressed into his lips and she didn't resist this time, didn't back away, though no refrigerator prevented her from doing so.  Her hands moved upwards, ran over the little tickling hairs on the back of his head and pressed him closer, her mouth opening to welcome him, and then he stepped away and turned his back, just like another moment in time when he dismissed her.

"You fly back to school now little Starling… fly… fly…"

Clarice felt a cold burning emptiness in her stomach.  Will Graham was still scanning the crowds, more and more uncertainly.  Charles and Stella were staring at her like she was some kind of circus freak.  Clarice took one last look at Dr. Hannibal Lecter's receding back and then she flew.


	29. Chapter 29: Found

"Oh come on, Margie.  That man was old enough to be your grandfather!  What were you doing kissing him like that in the middle of all Paris?"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Stella!  I'm sure he's not that much older than me.  And come on, tell me you've never had the urge to do something unexpected."

"Unexpected, my arse.  The Margie I know would never kiss anyone in public, let alone a stranger.  You know him, Marge, admit it."

"I truly don't," Clarice said laughing.  Stella glared.  Clarice put up her hand and placed the other one flat on the table.  "I, Marguerite Sanford, swear that I never saw that man in my life before last night."

Stella pouted.  "I had better not find you've been lying to me, Margie.  I have ways of finding out, you know," she said, with just a little playful threat thrown into her voice.  Just then the hour tolled in the plaza and a limo pulled up.  "Oh, I have to go, Marge.  Just don't forget what I said."

"Good bye, Stella," Clarice called, as the driver stepped out of the car to open the passenger door.

"Mademoiselle Sanford?" he asked.

Stella looked stunned.  "No, I am Stella de Barbaou."  She grinned.  Her famous smile was usually enough to do the trick.

"I am sorry, Mademoiselle Barbaou, but I am to pick up Mademoiselle Sanford."

Clarice stood up and approached, perplexed.

Stella was not impressed.  "She didn't order a ride, though.  I did."

"I am truly sorry, Mademoiselle.  My instructions were specifically to go to La Café Cheve on La Rue de Merceau and pick up the Mademoiselle Sanford who dines there everyday at this time."

"Who would send a limo for her?"  Stella was shocked.

Clarice narrowed her eyes.  So much for friendship.

"The Monsieur would not give his name, nor would he tell me where he wished Mademoiselle Sanford to be dropped off.  It was most strange."

Clarice stepped up.  "Oh I remember now, Stella.  One of my clients wanted to meet with me today over lunch. It slipped my mind.  I can't keep a client waiting, of course.  You understand," she said, slipping into the back of the limo.

Stella apparently didn't understand.  She stood shell-shocked looking after the long car as it turned the corner.  "Who would ever send a limo for Margie?  No client of hers would ever…" and then Stella trailed off, as her tiny self-centered little mind finally guessed the obvious.

Clarice grinned out of the back of the tinted window at Stella's shocked face.  She wouldn't forget that look any time soon.  The drive lowered the barrier between them.  "Mademoiselle's friend looks quite surprised."

"It's not often that happens," Clarice, said smiling.

"Oh, by the way, there is a surprise for Mademoiselle, in the armrest."

Clarice felt for the plastic handle in the leather upholstery and popped the armrest open.  Inside a small, folded cellular phone sat.  As she looked it, it began to ring.  Clarice's head snapped up to look at the driver and then back at the phone.  She reached down slowly and picked up the phone, extending the antenna.  She flipped it open and pressed it to her ear.

"Hello?" she asked, breathlessly.

"Is this Clarice?" the voice on the other end purred.  "Well, hello Clarice."


	30. Author's Notes

Well, it's over.  I always hate when people make comments in the chapters of their stories, so here is where I'll have my say if anyone cares to read it.

I intend that this will be my only Hannibal fan fiction.  This is how, in my mind, I believe the story could be ended perfectly.  As I suspect that Thomas Harris will be writing no other works with his characters Hannibal Lecter, Clarice Starling, Will Graham, etc., I see no need to change my idea.  And after all, the only thing I own here is the plot.  The characters, their situations, their attitudes and characteristics are all the amazing work of Thomas Harris.  The only reasons I was able to create my own story was because the Hollywood execs decided to screw with Harris' work.  My story is, perhaps, a way of getting us from the ending of the movie to the way that Harris intended it and we all know he intended Hannibal and Clarice to get together.

I want to thank each and every person who reviewed my story.  It's a great encouragement to know people are reading and enjoying something you've created. So thank you to Gwuinivyre, ShelleyYW, Viviane Aeryn, angelofnight, Kim the Manipulative Little Mo, frylock, Hanniballover1181, Luna Tic Socko, Screaming Lamb, and Morbid.  A great big thank you to Steel, Neptican, Saavik, troesnaja, Jane Moss, Nanci, MK, and LadyOfTruths, who reviewed more than once.  I really appreciate all of you.

            If you enjoyed this, and you share the same love of putting couples together that were obviously meant for each other, I invite you to check back with me.  My next adventure in fan fictioning will be to take on Labyrinth.  We all know Sarah was destined to become Queen of the Muppet People.


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